


Fowl Weather

by EffingOwls



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Awkward Sex, Canon Compliant, M/M, Muggle/Wizard Relations, POV Draco Malfoy, Post-Hogwarts, Witness Protection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:28:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 32,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24022876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EffingOwls/pseuds/EffingOwls
Summary: Some years after the Battle of Hogwarts, Draco and his parents are in witness protection - that is until someone catches up with them. Draco is forced to decide whether to trust the Ministry or take matters into his own hands, trusting the help of a muggle and a neighborhood watch-witch to save his family. Mostly he just angsts about his feelings towards his parents, his new identity as a good person, and his performance in the bedroom. Weird sex ensues.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Original Character(s), Draco Malfoy/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

Adam staggers out of the compressing darkness of apparition, stumbling sideways into a rack of tinned tomatoes which tumble to the floor. The handful of birds clutching at his shoulders and hair take flight untidily — one doing a sort of backflip and another getting its leg tangled in his white-blond hair.

“Fuck,” he mutters and tries to pile up the cans before anyone notices him.

“You alright, sir?”

“Fuck,” he mutters again and turns around. An employee of whatever muggle store this is (he glances briefly at the can in his hand and then around at the shelves piled high with produce — a grocery store, then) has spotted him and is making down the aisle toward him, regarding him warily like he might be a drunk. Well, the apparition has made him a bit loopy. “I’m fine,” he says more loudly. He raises his hands to show he’s not a threat, then realizes he’s acting exactly like the kind of person who would be a threat and lowers them again, dropping the can he’s still holding on the rack with the others. The muggle now has a blank look of shock on his face and as he raises a hand to point over Adam’s head, Adam remembers the birds. “Ah, that I can’t explain.”

The man gazes at Adam with such bewilderment it’s almost endearing. Alas. The man is left blinking stupidly in the wake of Adam’s memory charm and he is away, passing through a door that slides automatically aside for him and out onto the baking heat of a parking lot.

The air is hot enough that Adam shrugs off his black jacket, revealing dark suspenders clasped over a shimmery tank top. The birds follow him over to a bench in a little green area nestled between the carpark and the road where he slumps down and attempts to catch his breath. One bird lands on his left shoulder, another two on the bench beside him, and the others take up posts in a tree nearby. Adam swipes a hand across his bristled chin and sighs, heavily. He looks like a man who hasn’t slept for a week — or showered, judging by the untidy state of his hair. There’s a twitch in his eyes and an unfocused glaze to them; his leg bounces uncontrollably and he shifts his position with an irritation redolent of deep exhaustion. There is also the fact that he appears to be speaking to his birds.

It is a quiet, mumbling ramble that could’ve been mistaken as Adam simply talking to himself if he didn't throw the occasional glance to the finches on the bench beside him. They are all goldfinches, bright-faced with striped wings, hardly inconspicuous to be gathered around a pale young man whispering to himself in a Morrisons parking lot, but none of the muggles bustling out of their cars seem to have noticed.

“London’s out of the question…Where even is the visitor’s…Not supposed to—” One of the birds lets out an undignified squawk. “Yes I know this is ‘unforeseen circumstances,’ thank you.” His fingers sketch quotes around the words but subtly, almost sulkily, his arms not leaving his knees. He continues muttering in an even sulkier tone, “Two bloody weeks…not like I had a choice…if he just did his fucking job—Ah!” He jumps, almost tumbling off the end of the bench in surprise as he notices the large figure standing over him.

“Are you alright, young man?” The muggle woman looks impassively down at him, hands loosely gripping the handle of her shopping bag which she holds in front of her. She reminds him vaguely of that ridiculous portrait the Gryffindors used — probably still use — as their Common Room entrance.

“Don’t mean to bother you, but I wouldn’t feel right passing someone who looked as down as you.”

God, definitely a Gryffindor. Just his luck. “I’m fine, thank you,” he chokes, realizing with horror that he’s close to tears. He looks quickly back at the brickwork under his leather shoes.

The woman’s tone softens considerably and she speaks in a gentle, cajoling voice, “Would you like to come to mine for some tea? You look like you could do with a good slice of lemon-raspberry. I’m just over the wall, not five minutes.”

“The wall?” he says, confusedly. “Where are we?”

“My, love,” she chuckles. “Quite a night you must’ve had. You’re in York o’ course. You come down for a stag do or something?”

“York? But you’re not—”

“No, I’m from the south it’s true, but don’t hold it against me. I can’t get a trace off you, though; you a student, then?”

“No,” Adam says distractedly, looking around as if looking for a sign or map. “I’m—I’m just visiting. Passing through, really.”

“I’m Muriel, by the way.” The woman’s still beaming down at him like he’s a favorite nephew and he hunches down still further. “You got a name?”

“I—Adam.”

“Well, Adam. Unless you’re sat here waiting for someone I reckon a walk and some tea would do you good. What d’you say?”

“No—yes! Yes, I’m waiting for someone,” he says, seizing on the excuse. “He’ll be along any minute.”

“Alright, then,” the muggle says, but he knows she doesn’t believe him. “You take care now, then, and don’t be out too late. It’s not good on the system to miss too much sleep.”

Once he hears her footsteps disappear under the sound of traffic, Adam looks up and watches her carefully cross the road and grow smaller and smaller along the sidewalk. One of the birds hops off the bench and bounces a few steps as if to follow her, but then stands watching until she turns a corner. “Interfering muggles,” he says under his breath and the birds in the tree rustle loudly. “I know, I know, I’m just tired.” He looks around at them, eyes suddenly bright, and then back to the ground as a tear slips free and splashes down. “I’m sorry.”

The large, yellow ‘Morrisons’ sign flickers and Adam’s head snaps up. The bird perched on his shoulder chirps loudly in his ear and he waves an impatient hand to quiet it. “I know, but how—” He breaks off as a glint at the corner of the building catches his eye. “Fu-uck,” he breaths, drawing it out this time and standing in one swift movement, dislodging the bird so that it flutters angrily beside him. The two in the tree dive down to him, and he makes to snatch up the last one still on the pavement and it hops up to him. But that’s just five. “Where—” He spins around desperately and spots a finch, flapping idly in the direction the muggle went. “What the f—” He growls in frustration.

The thin stick of wood is already in his hand before his thought catches up with him and he glances from the security camera to his wand, before stuffing it away again. “There’s a class they could have given us,” he says, pulling his coat back on and making for the road. The birds rise in a cloud behind him, flapping along after him like a whirl of brown and gold snowflakes. “Survival in the muggle world. How to enchant cameras and cars and ticket machines…” His voice fades away as he trips along the sidewalk, throwing an occasional glance over his shoulder at the Morrisons entrance.

A woman strides out through the sliding door — not like the shoppers do, busy fussing with their children or shopping, but alert and upright, head swinging around like a lighthouse beacon, sweeping the lot. Adam throws himself around the next corner and ducks down behind the fence bordering the little yards of this row of houses. Crouched double he scurries along, neck craned to keep the last goldfinch in view.

“Adam? Is that you?”

He curses again, turning round to see the muggle woman standing at the door of the fourth house in the row, a puzzled look on her face. Then his eyes slip further to the end of the road where a woman in dark, deeply outdated clothing is turning the corner. A strip of wood is just visible protruding from the end of one overlong sleeve. He glances ahead again at the speck of brown and gold in the sky and whispers, “Accio.” The bird zooms back to him and lands in his hand just as he feels the unmistakable sensation of a spell hitting him.

“And I’ll take that, sir,” a cocky voice says from right behind him, pulling his wand from his fingers. She lifts the spell and he feels his muscles unfreeze. The bird he summoned is still in his hand. “Now, if you’d like to turn around slowly, I’ll ask you a few questions and we can get this over with as quickly as we can.”

Alright. He can do this, all he has to do is play it cool. He was drunk, apparated into a food store, took care of the muggle witness, no harm done. “Look, it was unintentional. I had a few too many—”

The woman’s eyes contract in surprise and she steps back a pace. “Draco?”

“Fuck,” he breathes.


	2. Chapter 2

“Excuse me, ma’am.” Muriel is bustling over from her doorway.

“Go back inside, Miss, I will be with you in a moment,” the witch says. Who the hell is she?

“If I may,” Muriel says breathlessly as she comes to stand between them. She holds up the necklace she’s wearing and before their eyes it transforms into a badge — two crossed keys with an eye where they intersect. “I’m the neighborhood watch-witch. If you’d like to use my kitchen, there won’t be any need for…” She gestures to her door and makes to move off.

The woman looks down her nose at the badge and then down her nose at Adam-né-Draco and nods stiffly. “Alright, let’s go.”

Draco follows Muriel inside, frantically wracking his brains in an attempt to place this old acquaintance. Then again, perhaps he doesn’t know her. He had, after all, made quite the splash in the papers after the Battle of Hogwarts as journalists waged war over his questionable character. This is the problem with trying to be invisible.

“Kitchen is this way,” Muriel says, leading them to the back of the house which looks out on the smallest garden Draco has ever seen, dark under gloomy grey clouds blooming into what will likely become thunderheads. The walls are hung with pictures of — he presumes — friends and family, laughing on, around, or above various monuments of the city. Some of them even have those muggle devices — phones — and are holding them up to the city around them; they must have cameras. It makes him think of a doddering grandmother, though he doesn’t think she can be quite old enough for the adults in the pictures to be her children. “Set yourselves down. I’ll put the kettle on.”

Draco sits at the little table and the woman — she must be a member of the magical law enforcement squad — slides onto the bench opposite him, a look of deep dislike etched on her face. Well, it certainly hadn’t been amicable between them if they had known each other.

“I knew it, moment I saw you,” Muriel says, sweeping over with two plates of cake which she slides in front of each of them. “You should know, suspenders are a bit unusual for the muggle fashion. I can’t believe I didn’t notice your shirt was unicorn hair,” she adds, clucking. “So long as you keep that coat on you should be fine.”

“Thanks,” the witch says dryly, not touching her fork.

Draco, prompted by a thunderous growl from his stomach, lifts his own slice with his fingers and wolfs it down in four bites. The witch’s expression turns, if possible, more withering. Unwillingly, Draco finds he likes her.

“Start talking, Malfoy,” she says, not waiting for Muriel who quickly hops into a chair between them with her own slice of cake and waves a wand for the kettle to come and pour itself into three waiting mugs.

“Malfoy?” Muriel says interestedly, offering sugar to each of them which they refuse, Draco more so as to appease the glowering witch opposite him. “As in Draco? Well no wonder you’re giving out odd names, Adam.” She winks endearingly at him, then sobering and adding more formally, “If you don’t mind me saying so.”

“Ms…?” The other witch looks at Muriel inquiringly.

“Oh call me Muriel, dear.”

“Muriel. If I may?” she finishes coldly, and Muriel ducks her head apologetically. “So, Adam is it now?”

“I’m sorry, I’m having trouble placing you,” Draco says smoothly. He feels a flicker of the old enjoyment he got from making scowling people squirm, and quickly bats it down.

“I am Officer Bones of the Magical Law Enforcement.” One of the birds poops involuntarily on the table and jumps away from it in surprise.

Susan Bones. He bites his lip mentally. Yes, this is going to be difficult. “Officer?” he says without thinking. “Already?”

Pride and anger battle furiously behind her storm-grey eyes, but she blinks them back to impassivity. “Yes, Officer.” She leans forward and Draco has to stop himself from imitating her. “What were you doing in a muggle store, Malfoy?”

“Overshot myself,” he says, pleased to hear how casual his voice is.

“And where were you shooting for?”

“I don’t see that that’s any of your business, Bones.”

She smiles and he knows he’s pushing his luck. “Try me, Malfoy. Arresting you would round out my week nicely, and it’s been a very long week.”

So it’s Friday. Draco hasn’t paid much attention to weekdays since, well, since Hogwarts really. His mouth twists as he suppresses a sneer. It’s amazing how an old classmate brings the old him to the surface in a matter of minutes. “I was aiming for the Fossgate Feathers, happy? It’s not a crime to go for a pint is it?”

“And the birds?”

Fuck. “Look, Bones, Susan—”

“Don’t Susan me, Malfoy. I’ve got more than enough to take you in: disorderly conduct, obliviating a muggle without warrant—”

“Love, it’s best if you just come clean,” Muriel cuts in. He’s distracted by the fact that she somehow conjured him a new slice of cake without him noticing.

“Look I can’t tell you, alright?” he snaps. He’s on his feet, heart pounding, his panic making him suddenly furious.

Bones sighs and twirls her wand. Ropes appear from nowhere, binding Draco’s hands together so tightly he knows they’ll leave marks.

“Please,” he spits out through gritted teeth. He sits again, bound arms pressed against the table beseechingly. “Bones, you can’t take me in. I—I…I’m in witness protection.”

For a second, it looks like she’s going to laugh, but he knows she can see the logic behind this and instead she leans back, drumming her fingers on her lips. Then she sits up straight and spreads her arms. “I still have to call this in. Confirmation, I have to report you’ve broken boundaries, they’ll have to assign you a new—”

“I didn’t just break—” He really does bite his lip this time. How much does he tell her? Them, he corrects himself because Muriel looks like her favorite mystery novel has come to life. But before he can say anything, there is an angry shriek and the goldfinches take flight as one.

“Guilfy, no!” Muriel cries as an enormous barn owl soars into the room, talons raised, wings filling the cramped kitchen with whirling feathers. Bones stands, but Draco has already snatched Muriel’s wand from the table.

“Stupefy!” He doesn’t see where the spell hits — it’s not like he can aim with these ropes on him anyway — but the bird is everywhere so he figures he can’t miss. Sure enough, the bird collapses onto the table in front of Draco. He’s on his feet again breathing hard, looking around quickly, counting finches as they settle again, trembling.

“I’m so sorry,” Muriel whispers, her hands half covering her mouth. “I didn’t think he was still in the house.”

Bones faces him across the table, her wand raised and Draco realizes he’s still holding Muriel’s wand. He drops it next to her as she gently collects her owl and takes him into the next room. “Go on, Malfoy,” Bones says when they’re alone.

Fine. “This morning the sensory charm around our—our residence,” (he cannot call it a house) “was tripped. We notified the Ministry, but our agent decided it wasn’t worth investigating. Two hours later, the charm was tripped again. We notified the Ministry again but before they responded, the wards went down and someone broke through the front door.”

Bones looks alarmed — good — but she holds up a hand to stop him. “You say ‘we.’ Does that mean your parents were with you?”

“My parents.” He has to take a long, steadying breath before he can go on. “Two of these are my parents.” He gestures to the birds. One of them warbles sadly. “We made it over the back wall, but they — whoever they are — sent a curse over after us. It missed me; we’d come down in the middle of the muggle family that lived in the next house and I got knocked beneath the garden table, but they — my parents and the muggles —” He gestures again, and as he does so, he notices that one of the finches is at the far end of the room flapping at the window and he’s suddenly uneasy again. Muriel, re-entering the room, goes over to it and tries to coax it away from the glass. “I need to go. I’ve stayed to long already.”

“You’re not going anywhere, Malfoy,” Bones says, but she vanishes the ropes binding him. She’s eyeing him oddly now. “You think I’d let you get killed on my watch? I’ll take you straight to Witness Protection; they’ll know what to do with you.”

“You can’t just take me into the Ministry!” He can hardly think of a more dangerous place for him right now. Hundreds of wizards, hundreds of potential ex-Death Eaters, hundreds of empty offices.

“There’s a fire in the back of our department. No one will see you. Now, who’s the agent handling your case?”

He hesitates. He had kind of hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but she’s tapping her wand expectantly and the bugger has to find out sometime. “Potter,” he mumbles.

She looks like she’s been hit by a bludger. “They assigned you to Harry?”

“Yeah, and a lot of fucking good it’s done me,” he snaps.

“Sorry, sorry,” she says, close to laughter again. But then she flourishes her wand and a silvery dog bounds out of it and through the window. “Muriel, would you happen—”

“Got the pot right here,” Muriel says holding out the floo powder for them to take.

“You first,” Bones says darkly, pointing her wand at Draco. “Chief Westin’s office.”

“You want me to take birds by floo powder?”

“Oh for goodness sake.” She waves her wand for a fourth time and the birds fly into his arms, immobile.

No more excuses. The fire is warm and tickles as he steps into it. He takes one last look at Muriel and her tiny kitchen and the pictures pointing at him and roaring with laughter. Then, with a steely edge to his voice, he says “Chief Westin’s Office, Ministry of Magic.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Merlin, a muggle family, too, Malfoy?” Bones says as she climbs out of the fire behind him. They’re in a dark, wood paneled room with just one window, filled with brilliant and obviously enchanted sunlight. A large and ornate desk of the same wood — walnut, Draco thinks — is angled so that it faces both the fire and the doorway. The room is otherwise empty. “Wait here,” Bones says, and vanishes through the door, closing it behind her.

There is a small window in the door, of the sort Draco had in his own room at Malfoy Manor before the estate was seized by Shacklebolt’s government, and he can see what must be the auror cubicles, chaotic and busy as ever, on the other side. He gently, ever so gently, deposits the birds on the desk — he can’t help but arrange them in ways he imagines would be most comfortable on that hard surface — and then walks to the door, peering out at the activity.

It’s like looking through a time window; half the people walking past are ones he recognizes. There’s that stuffed shirt MacMillan, Thomas and Finnigan, a few Weasleys, the Ravenclaw Patil, and — gulp — Pansy. He twists away from the window. Last time he saw her was for some very frantic post-battle sex. He’s honestly surprised to see her working in a department whose job is to hunt down Death Eaters. Maybe she’s changed.

The door opens and he steps quickly away from it to let Bones and — Salazar give him patience — Potter into the room. Draco’s prepared to bet that if he had his wand on him, he would curse Potter where he stands.

“Ah, um, Draco,” Potter says reddening at once. He’s had to start calling Draco by his first name as he can’t refer to all three of the Malfoys by their surname when he visits to check on them. As much as he’s reformed, or tried to, there is no way in hell Draco would reciprocate.

“Potter,” he says spitefully.

“Thank you, Susan,” Potter says, turning to Bones who is regarding him with something close to reverence. “Can you see if you can find Chief Westin? He’ll want to make the final call on this.”

“Of course.” Bones inclines her head, glares at Malfoy, and disappears again.

“So, have you found them?”

“Found?” Potter repeats.

“The fucking scum that attacked me and my parents, Potter!” He wipes spit from his lips. That will not do.

“I’m…sorry, Draco,” Potter says. It clearly costs him something to say it. “They didn’t leave any trace.” Something clicks inside him, like business mode has activated, and Potter is suddenly able to look at him. He strides around the desk to sit behind it and conjures a chair for Draco. He doesn’t take it. “Willis and Wrackshaw have combed over the place twice but the intruder didn’t leave anything behind. We do have one lead, though it’s not terribly comforting.”

“Yes?”

Potter considers him for a moment, his instinct obviously telling him not to trust a Malfoy with information, but his training wins out. “The way they disabled the wards. There’s no way they could have done without knowledge of standard department shielding spells. So—”

“So whoever attacked us must work in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement,” Draco finishes.

“Or worked here at one time,” Potter corrects.

“But it makes sense,” Draco says. “That’s how they would know where we were!”

Potter shakes his head. What a condescending ass. “Only two people knew your location: the chief and me.”

“The Chief and I, Potter,” Draco sneers. Potter’s all-business façade cracks slightly and his jaw hardens. Luckily, perhaps, the door opens at that moment and Potter stands.

“Someone called me about avian transformation?” A timid-looking medi-wizard pokes his head through the door and yelps when he sees who he is addressing. The famous Chosen One and the infamous Draco Malfoy.

“Come in,” Potter says politely to the quaking wizard and he does so.

“They’re right here,” Draco says quickly, drawing Potter’s conjured chair out of the way and moving to his frozen family.

“Hm,” the wizard says in professional interest. “Are you sure these are….Quite an impressive transformation…”

“Of course I’m sure.” Draco says impatiently. “I was there. I saw it happen.”

“I can’t reverse it with a spell as I’m not sure what spell or curse they might have used and that could cause no end of complications.”

“You can’t—?” Draco explodes.

“But I have a restorative draft here,” the wizard adds quickly, “which should do the job in no time.”

“Do it then,” Potter says before Draco can intimidate the medi-wizard any further.

“Very good, sir.” The wizard looks just as terrified being addressed by Harry Potter, but sets to work, placing each of the birds on the floor, two feet apart, then kneeling down to dribble something out of a small flask into each beaked mouth. It works instantly. A golden glow emanates from each feathered breast, growing brighter until it consumes and then transcends the little animals. Six bright beams of light shoot upwards and then the room is dark again and six people stand blinking at him, Potter, and the little medi-wizard.

He finds his father’s gaze at once — shaky and relieved and almost as ruined as after the Battle of Hogwarts. Then his eyes flicker over a sobbing woman in a stained apron, over her husband who is holding her and muttering in her ear as tears roll down his own face, over a boy of around Draco’s age who is looking around the room with an expression of wonder on his face, over the boy’s ass filling out his skin-tight jeans because, hey, Draco’s been in witness protection a long time, over a girl several years younger but with the same dark hair as the boy — she must be his sister —, and over…the man is stark naked and absolutely filthy.

“Who the fuck is this?” Draco says, so loudly the man jumps and scuttles backward into the corner.

“Fascinating,” the medi-wizard says, gently waving his wand up and down in front of the man, scanning him.

“Draco?” But he can’t look at his father, can’t face his accusing sneer, not when it’s his fault his mother’s missing.

“It appears this man is actually a goldfinch. That’s the trouble with restorative drafts,” he says, turning with a smile. “They can sometimes restore things that weren’t meant to be…” then he stutters out under Draco’s malevolent stare.

“Where—” Oh Merlin. Oh fucking god, “I left her behind!” His fingers rake his hair as he remembers chasing after the bird outside the muggle grocery. He thought he’d had all six with him when he apparated but he never really counted. Not till that moment.

“Draco,” his father says again and he feels the familiar grip on his shoulder, tighter and more emotional in recent years. “She’ll be alright.” He feels his father press a dry kiss to his temple and wishes he had something to hold on to — a chair, a hand, anything except the man he loves but who repulses him. He’s vaguely aware of Potter speaking gently to the muggles and the medi-wizard attempting to force an antidote down the bird-man’s throat, but it’s not important. His mother is in the hands of a stranger who wants them dead. He wonders whether they’ve turned her back into a human or if she’s still trapped in a bird’s body, flapping around a cage somewhere until they decide what to do with her.

“Potter,” he chokes out. His father echoes the names, spitting it between his teeth contemptuously, but Potter turns dutifully. “What—” Fuck. It’s come to this, begging Potter for help. “What do we do now? What’s the next step? Ransom demands?”

“That’s for us to discuss,” comes a new voice, a deep, sonorous baritone. A big man, round as a muscled balloon, with scars up and down his arms, enters the room followed by the comparatively minuscule Bones. The muggles cower away into the corner recently occupied by the bird-man whom the medi-wizard has now returned to his normal state and contained in a small cage.

“I’ve had a word with Muriel Hall,” the big man says to the room at large, "and she’s agreed to put these two up for the near future until we can properly assess the situation and give them a new address.” He turns to Draco and his father. “You will remain Adam and Argus Greengrass for the time being and you will remain at Ms. Hall’s residence until we make contact which may or may not be after we determine the location of Ms. Malfoy. And son,” The man looks at Draco meaningfully. “You may have the sympathies of the Minister, but when this is all over, your parents will still be under house arrest, make no mistake.”

“Sir,” Potter cuts in. “This muggle boy says he saw the attacker.”

“Hm,” the man, who must be Chief Westin, considers the boy who looks earnestly back at him. Draco has to hand it to the muggle, he’s taking this very well. “Well, we’ll have a sketch artist work with him in the morning.”

“Uh, sir,” the muggle says. “I did see someone but I really didn’t get a good look. I couldn’t tell you what they looked like.”

“That won’t be a problem,” the chief says absently. “He’ll have to stay with Ms. Hall as well and we can wipe his memory when this is all over.” Draco almost grins at the look of horror that crosses the poor boy’s face. “Bones can deal with the rest and send them home.” He nods to Bones and leaves the room again.

“Your wand,” Bones says stiffly. She holds it out to him, her fingers smoothing the handle almost reverently as she does. He blinks. He’d been expecting her to hold it gingerly between finger and thumb like some diseased bit of him she’d rather not touch. Still, her eyes are cold when they meet his and he takes it without question. “I’ll see you back to Muriel’s and then be on my way.”

His father steps smartly into the emerald flames and disappears, but Draco turns to Potter to, what? Thank him? Swear at him? But he’s already left the room, and Bones hurries him into the fire after his father.


	4. Chapter 4

“Mr., uh, Greengrass,” Muriel says carefully to Draco’s father, and then again to him. “And Mr…?”

“Jenkins,” the muggle says, beaming. “Chris. Thank you for…this is incredible.”

Muriel looks like she’s too kind to say ‘don’t get used to it,’ and nods. “You’ll be staying next-door. I let it out on this muggle service called AirBnb but no one’s in at the moment so you’ll have it to yourselves.”

“Are you,” Draco shoots a glance at his father, but he’s not listening, standing vacant and lost looking by the window, “muggleborn?”

“Sort of.” Draco’s never heard that before. He waits for Muriel to clarify. “Magic kind of goes in and out in my family. More of us are squibs than magic so I’m used to living both sides of the coin. There’s a big community of squibs here, though plenty go abroad to countries that aren’t so strict about muggle-wizard division.” That’s new, too. He thought the International Statute of Secrecy was a global thing. “But, anyway, I’ll bring you over and get you set up. Your father can take the bottom apartment, which leaves you two in the attic. It might need a bit of tidying — I don’t rent that one out you see, just keep it in case I’ve got a lot of family around. And it’s got no kitchen, but I’ll bring some supper over once I’ve got your father settled.

“Excellent,” Draco says.

The muggle bobs his head earnestly. “Thank you.”

Draco makes to walk back to the door, but Muriel pulls him back. “No, my dear. I’ve got my orders; you’re not to go outside. It’s raining in any case. I’ll take you over by apparition.” She reaches out to grab the muggle’s hand, too, and pulls them into darkness.

The world compresses in on Draco. His breath is forced out of him, his skin tight, his whole body squeezed almost beyond endurance. But this is all normal. What is not normal is the wave of horror that sweeps over him, the vivid memory of running, spells flying past him, fingers scrabbling at a brick wall, chalky gravel smacking against his face and hands, a whirling of bird, and then twisting, sickening darkness.

They emerge in a small bedroom with a little alcove and a door that must lead to a bathroom leading off it. Two dormers pierce the slanted wall on the far side of the double bed and on the side closest to them a pull-out mattress on wheels is peeking out, already made. The walls themselves are a very neutral purple, the duvet and carpet are both the same dark, silvery grey; the white trim and pillows bring the only lightness to the room, apart from the light itself which comes from a single lamp burning directly over the bed. Draco barely has a moment to take in these new surroundings before his stomach comes up and empties itself upon the dark, fuzzy carpet.

“I’m—sorry,” he chokes, wiping the last away from his lips and pulling out his wand, but Muriel’s already vanished the sick.

“Don’t apologize, my dear. You’ve had a rough day and I dare say I took you by surprise just then, silly me. You lie down until I have supper ready. This young man’ll look after you till I’m back, won’t you, love?” She raises an eyebrow at the muggle who nods, looking both concerned and beside himself with excitement as Muriel pops into nothing.

Draco lies down on the bed, and the boy walks around to sit down on the other side of it.

“Can I get you anything?” he asks Draco. Draco looks pointedly around the barren room and then back at the muggle, who blushes. Still, he seems impervious to Draco’s rudeness, looking around wide-eyed as ever. His purple cap clashes horribly with the walls but he doesn’t take it off. He does lift it to swipe his thick hair off to the side in an affected sort of way. “Does that happen a lot, getting sick when you disappear like that?” he asks.

“No, but I’ve had a very long day.”

“Of course. What a wicked way to travel, though. God that was exciting. Far better than that fire thing — that was a bit freaky.” Getting squeezed through the void just to appear in the tiny apartment next-door is exciting? This kid needs to chill. “And they said you were attacked! That must have been terrifying. You’re alright now though. Safe, aren’t we?”

Draco closes his eyes and lets out a massive sigh. “Yes, we’re perfectly safe. Now we just have to wait here while the Ministry tries to find my mother before whoever attacked us kills her.”

That shuts the muggle up. For a minute at least. “Oh. I—I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize…I thought it was just you and your father.” They’re both silent after that. Draco can hear the boy — man, guy, young bloke — shifting occasionally on the scratchy duvet, but is relieved he doesn’t ask anything else. He doesn’t really want to think about it. Finally, a pop announces Muriel’s return and Draco feels the bed bounce as the muggle jumps in surprise.

“Didn’t have anything in so I nipped to the shop for some chips and chicken wings if that’s alright with you. Your father says he isn’t hungry just now, so it’ll just be the three of us,” she adds to Draco as he stands up and joins her and the muggle boy in the little alcove. The compressing darkness isn’t so bad this time; he only feels slightly queasy when they arrive in the little kitchen, warm from the fire and thick with the smell of fried food. Normally Draco would disapprove of such common fare, but he’s eaten very little today and welcomes the prospect of salty fats. They squeeze around the table and the bags of greasy food open and waiting, the rain now hammering on the brick outside and splashing up on the glass door.

“I do hope you’ll be comfortable here while the Ministry is out looking for your mother,” Muriel says as they tuck in. She’s looking at him in an odd way and he’s not sure if it’s kindly or something else. It’s almost like she’s sizing him up; is she wondering whether he’s going to vomit again?

“Yeah, I’m sure Nar…Mrs. Greengrass,” he amends with a glance at the muggle; does it really matter? “will be their top priority.” He tosses a bone into the bowl Muriel’s provided. “I just wish I knew how to find them myself.”

“The question is how did they find you?” Muriel sits back and draws her mug towards herself. “You answer that and you’ve got yourself a working theory.”

The muggle shifts in his chair like an overly enthusiastic schoolboy. “Could they, like, use a spell to find you? Like a homing beacon?”

“A what?” Draco says scornfully and Muriel shakes her head.

“Even if there was such a spell, no way it could’ve found him and his family behind all those wards.”

“That’s where you start then,” Draco says. “They took out the wards. That must mean they work with the department.”

“I don’t know, love,” Muriel says apologetically. “From what the Chief told me, only he and Mr. Potter knew your location, and I know neither of them likes you much but they wouldn’t do anything like this.”

Much as he hates to admit it, she’s right. “Someone overheard them then or got into the files!”

Muriel looks like she’s about to contradict him, but the muggle cuts in, apparently following his own train of thought. “You say a spell couldn’t find him behind the wards on the house, but Adam wasn’t always in the house. I’ve seen him around town.”

Draco blinks. He’s seen him? He supposes it’s not that odd given they're neighbors, but he certainly couldn’t say he’s ever noticed the muggle boy before. The only muggle he’d recognize is the one in the shop he had to go to to buy their food.

“Dra—Adam, that’s it!” Muriel says. “It’s got to be.”

“Do you think so?” The muggle seems delighted with himself. “Could they have found a spell that would find Adam when he’s out of the house?”

“No, of course not,” Draco says and the boy wilts. “But they might have seen me in person.”

Muriel looks thoughtful. “That’s actually something I’ve been curious about. Why didn’t the Ministry have you under polyjuice protection? It means make you look like someone else,” she explains to the muggle.

“You can do that?” he trills, his baritone voice skipping upward excitedly.

Draco sighs heavily. “Frankly, we were pretty low priority and the Ministry didn’t want to waste any on us.” He wants to say ‘Potter didn’t want to waste any’ but that really isn’t fair. “I was the only one allowed out of the house as my parents are supposed to be under house arrest, and seeing as it was a muggle village and all the known Death Eaters are in custody…” They weren’t even given protection until a scare two years ago when four Death Eaters escaped from their trial causing the largest wizarding lockdown of a muggle area in seventy-five years. Before that he’d been off on his own in London while his parents were confined to the Cambridge house.

“Wait, go back.” The muggle is thinking again. “Are you saying some wizard just happened to be strolling through Thisby-on-Ouse?”

“Well there must be some wizards living around there. It’s only ten miles or so from York and there are hundreds of us here.”

“You mean they live there?” This information is almost too much for him, but he contains himself. “No wonder they found you. Mysterious Mr. and Mrs. Greengrass have been the talk of the town.”

“They have?” Draco says, a chicken wing halfway to his mouth.

“Mrs. Appleton’s been trying to get it out of you what your family does for ages. She used to live in that house, you know.” That must be the woman at the store. He just assumed it was all smalltalk.

“That still doesn’t explain how they knew it was him, though. They only had the name Greengrass to go on,” Muriel reminds them.

The muggle swallows his mouthful, confused. “Is that not your name?”

Draco shakes his head. His father picked the name — he wouldn’t go by anything that wasn’t a proper pure-blood name, proud man that he is. He knows the muggle’s going to ask him for his real name, so he turns to Muriel. “I can do this. I can find them, but only if you let me. The Ministry would never let me go after them on my own, but they don’t give a damn about my family and if they can catch a Death Eater at the price of my mother’s life, they will.” He looks at her, trying with all his might to look earnest, though it's not an expression that comes easily to him. The muggle looks avidly back and forth between them, but Muriel is finishing a chicken wing and hasn’t answered. “So?” he urges. “Will you let me do this?”

She considers him and then leans forward, lowering her voice to a husky whisper. “I’ll do you one better: I’ll help you. I’ll make sure you get your mother back, but you’ve got to do something for me first.”

He’s completely taken aback by this. What with her maternal air, he’d expected her to comply no questions asked. “What do I need to do?”

“I help you rescue someone, you help me rescue someone.”

And that is even more unexpected. “Who do you have that needs rescuing?”

She leans back, returning to her usual volume but something’s different about her — more casual but also more calculating. It makes him wonder what being a watch-witch in York entails. “A portrait,” she says finally. “My five-times-great-grandmother. The painting was in my family for a half century before they were evicted from their estate as all the heirs were squibs and the painting went missing. It popped up again, probably off the black market, and went through a few owners before getting donated to Hogwarts where it is now.”

Draco chokes on a chip. “You want me to break into Hogwarts, for a portrait? You are aware that I’m being hunted and am under surveillance by the Ministry?”

“You’d be disguised of course, and I would be there too, and Mr. Jenkins if he’d like to come.”

“The muggle?” Draco says in disgust.

But the muggle’s eyes light up like Christmas has come early. “Seriously?”

“As long as you take it seriously,” she says firmly. Then to Draco, “Do we have a deal?”

Now it’s his turn to consider her. “Tell me more about this portrait.”

“Well, it’s very accessible but it will be missed so we would have to move quickly. I’ve been planning this for a little over a year, ever since I visited Hogwarts and learned who she was. I didn’t go myself as a child — my father taught me himself when he wasn’t off trading potions and seven-league-boots.” She pauses as if wondering whether to say more, but clearly decides she must because she takes a deep breath and says, “You may know her as the Fat Lady.”

If Draco didn’t just swallow he might’ve choked again. “The Fat Lady?” Is she insane? Then again, the chance to steal from Gryffindor Tower is highly appealing. “But how did you find out? No one even knows her name.”

“Because of what I do,” Muriel explains. “I’m a watch-witch, and that means looking after the muggles as well as witches and wizards that live in my neighborhood. I’m in charge of muggle outreach, and getting wizarding families involved in the muggle community. It’s a big job for such a vibrant area and I went in to talk with the Muggle Studies professor about setting up an internship for interested students and she introduced me.”

“But why—”

Muriel hurries on. “Not many people — not even the Headmistress, apparently — are aware that she wasn’t actually a witch. Impressive enough that she managed to have a magical portrait made of her, but what is most impressive is that she was the only muggle ever to be appointed to office in the Ministry of Magic.” Muriel sits back impressively as Draco digests this staggering information. “Of course, no one knew. She made it twelve years and ascended all the way to Assistant Head of International Relations before she was found out and, well…” She grimaces.

A muggle. In the Ministry of Magic. And he’s going to help this woman rescue her? Why not. “It’s a deal,” he says, and Muriel beams at him.

They discuss it a little longer but Muriel promises to have everything under control, and as they will have a big day tomorrow, she insists they go to bed. This time Draco takes the muggle over himself and then apparates downstairs to fill his father in on the plan. The lights aren’t on when he appears in the hall and there’s no sound apart from the still present hum of the rain.

“Father?” The sound of a cleared throat draws him into the bedroom. His father is sitting erect on the bed, facing a large and ornate mirror but not really focussed on it. His coat is still on and Draco wonders if he’s moved at all since Muriel brought him here. “Father, I’ve come up with a plan. This woman says she can help me find mother, I just need to help her do something first.” No need to tell him what that is. “I’ll be away tomorrow and then we’ll find her. I promise.”

His father just stares at the glossy, silent mirror so Draco turns to leave. “Do you remember how you used to make storms in your bedroom when you were having a tantrum?” Draco pauses on the threshold, listening. “And she would come in with an umbrella and sit with you.”

Yes, Draco remembers. It felt like the only time his mother would ever just be with him, for him and only him, gently and quietly. It was probably the only magic he ever managed to do on purpose before he got a wand, and he certainly abused it, ruining his floors and furniture and books again and again with rain or snow or hail. And she would just watch it happen and then when it was done, the house elf would charm them back to normal. “Yes, I remember.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t a good father.” Yes. His father has made the apology at least a hundred times since the war. “And I know she — we both made mistakes, but whatever she did, she is your mother and she loves you more than anything else in the world.” He sighs deeply. “Bring her back, Draco.”

“I will, father. Goodnight.”

He apparates back to the attic room where the muggle boy is impatiently pacing around the tiny alcove. He jumps when Draco appears, but then points to the bathroom, face wide and full of boundless excitement. “The mirror!” he cries.

“Oh, of course. Yours don’t talk, do they?”

The boy makes a visible effort to control himself and says, in a slightly more measured voice, “So tomorrow, we’ll use app-ar-ition to get to this castle, yeah? And then what?”

“I don’t know,” Draco says wearily, but not unkindly. The muggle’s enthusiasm may be ridiculous, but it reminds him of the way Pansy used to be. Of course, she was excited by gossip and the Dark Lord instead of mundane things like magic mirrors, but it was still the thing that most attracted him to her. “Muriel has a plan; I’m sure we’ll hear the rest of it in the morning.”

“I suppose,” the boy says, and turns to face the beds. There’s that ass again. Maybe his exhaustion is messing with his mind’s wiring. “Well, Adam — it’s Adam, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” And then, when his brain prompts him, “And your name was…”

“Chris,” he says. “Should we turn in, then?”

“I guess so. You have the bed.”


	5. Chapter 5

The second he offers the muggle the bed he is immediately suspicious of himself. Since when does a Malfoy take second rate sleeping arrangements? The muggle boy seems to be suspicious, too, and eyes him warily, saying he really doesn’t mind the pullout, but relents when Draco insists. He’s even insisting now, what is this about? If he keeps this up he’s going to start becoming predictable.

He tosses his wand down on the bed, just to show he could take it if he wanted to, and pulls his shirt off over his head. Across from him, the muggle does the same. He thinks he catches the muggle glancing at his torso as he does so, but the next second he’s turned away from him and sitting down on the edge of the bed.

Draco knows he is fit, but it’s in a more muscles-on-bones kind of way, his muscles being thin enough that if he took them off he could likely hang them in his closet and mistake them for another dress shirt. This man has actual flesh shaped in proper mounds and bulging snakes, flesh that radiates a strength that can only be intended to hold another body in those glorious arms. Ok, getting a little carried away here.

He takes a breath and then takes off his trousers, too. There’s no denying it; the boy definitely looks at him this time, his eyes sweeping, cursory, from his chest to his legs, hitching for the briefest moment on the green plaid in between. Probably lucky he isn’t wearing his serpent underwear; might be a bit much, considering they move and like to — wow. The man is standing now, stripping off his own trousers revealing powerful legs and boxers not too different from his own, though red and blue. He supposes muggles have to be comfortable, too. The man sits back down, not looking at Draco, folding his clothes and tucking them away so fastidiously it’s clear he’s waiting to see if Draco will do something. Well, why not? The guy doesn’t have to know Draco doesn’t make the first move. Draco’s not sure if that’s a Malfoy thing, and on reflection doesn’t want to know, but this time doesn’t even really count. The boy’s not even a wizard and given that tomorrow he might have his memory wiped and Draco might be murdered, it’s more like a last supper than a dance of social power. He’s eating; it doesn’t really matter who he’s eating with. So, with a dignity he hasn’t felt since this whole misadventure began, he walks boldly over to the muggle and sits beside him.

The comforter and mattress sink beneath him and the rough embroidery of the duvet scratching against the backs of his thighs makes him feel more naked than he had when taking off his trousers, certainly more naked than he’s felt in months. The muggle — no, he can’t call him that if he’s going to have sex with him. Christopher, then; he supposes thinking of him by his name works as well as anything. Christopher turns and, more quickly than he anticipated, it’s happening. Time seems to freeze as their faces fall in slow motion towards each other; two, semi-naked, queer boys who have survived a sudden and bizarre attack, drawn together by the inexorable weight of circumstance. It’s not even a question of attraction or anxiety, just pure gravity.

Years later, when their lips finally meet, Draco becomes conscious of the skin under his hands — the boy’s skin, his chest, back, and shoulders — and then he feels hands on him. Christopher’s hands are warm, and his mouth… It’s been so long, his lips tell him, pulling him back to his last kiss and then he is kissing all his exes in rapid succession: Theo, Pansy, Al—Alex? Alan?, Joseph, the bartender from The Twelve Axes, that really massive bloke from Norfolk, Tobias… Christopher’s hand brushes his nipples and, oh, his chest is telling him it’s been even longer since he’s had sex. He never quite got there with Tobias after all.

They come up for air and Christopher seems to be trying to peer into his eyes, but Draco is distracted by those lips, already forgetting how they feel, what they taste like, and they’re his again. They surface and dive, and as his eyes hungrily scan the pulsing neck, the rising and falling chest, they fall past and down to the tent in that red and blue underwear, tall and taught.  
He almost reaches out for it, but when Christopher slips his mouth sideways and drifts along Draco’s neck, his body gets other ideas, leans into the embrace and then pulls him to his feet. He steps back and slides his boxers down until the elastic relaxes and they fall to the floor.

There it is, that feeling of confident power that only nakedness and cruelty bring and as he has done his best to renounce the second, he glories in the glowing sheen of his skin and the way Christopher’s eyes have frozen on him. He is hairless, as is his preference, and he hangs sleek as a diving seal, pale and heavy. Christopher reaches out and his gaze flicks up to Draco’s. Draco just looks at him for a moment, unable to resist the tease, then nods.

His lungs suck in air as Christopher’s fingers make contact. They come up behind and lift him, balls and dick, gently, as if he were a bird perched there on his fingers. Then his mouth is there, taking him, still limp, and the mouth, the tongue, is speaking to him. It’s telling him about a boy, a gentle, generous boy to whom magic is a revelation, a boy who called apparition ‘exciting,’ a boy who grew up loved and loved in return, a boy who — wow — has certainly had some sexual experience, a boy who aspires to the kind of mediocre life his parents have and will always have, a boy who has never gone to war, probably never been in a fight, a boy who has never looked into the snake-like face and red-burning eyes of — fuck no.

He’s breathing heavily. Why, with a cute boy’s lips on his dick can he not just fucking live in the moment? And he’s still not even hard. Draco looks down the suddenly long stretch of rubbling white ribs to the top of Christopher’s head. How long has it been since he started? Christopher’s hands have come around to the sides of Draco’s hips now, fingers softly massaging the pockets in his ass just behind the hipbones which, yes that’s excellent but it’s still not enough drive away the resentment that’s risen so quickly and unexpectedly within him.

Christopher pulls off and Draco gasps and as if he’s taken something of Draco’s with him — his dick, his sex drive, his soul? Draco almost snorts aloud. His soul? God, this is not how this was supposed to go. He realizes he’s fallen forward and his hands have come up to brace themselves against Christopher’s shoulders as he breathes deeply.

“Was that…good for you?” Christopher asks hesitantly.

Yes, fuck, it was my first sex in ages what do you think.  
No, goddammit, I’m a Malfoy. You think that was good head? I didn’t even get hard.  
“I just—can we try something else?” he forces out. You will not bite off this poor muggle boy’s head. You will not.

“Of course.” Christopher still looks like a puppy that’s been stepped on so when he climbs over him onto the bed, he doesn’t bother to apologize when he kneels on Christopher’s hand. Hell, he might have done it on purpose. Flopping back into the cushiony down, he’s painfully aware this has gone from highly sexually charged to an almost transactional experience. He’s not entirely sure why he doesn’t just give him up as a bad job and stalk off to the shower. It’s not like he hasn’t done that before.

No. He closes his eyes and wills himself to just let go and enjoy the sensations of Christopher’s tongue. This is just like occlumency with his aunt — Fuck. He sits up. That was wrong for so many reasons.

“I’m sorry,” Christopher says, but that just makes it worse. He doesn’t need some guy — some muggle — pitying him for his erection trouble. No, they are doing this.

Don’t be such a pansy, muggle, he thinks harshly. “It’s fine, it’s not you,” he says gently. “Here. Come here.” And he pulls Christopher up onto the bed, and then tugs his hips roughly down between his legs. There, that friction might just be enough to get his pathetic dick to activate.

“Adam,” Christopher whispers and then ducks to kiss him. Draco pulls him down still harder before realizing it was a question. When Christopher breaks the kiss, he looks up at him and finds his eyes intent and serious. Oh no. He knows that look. Christopher wants to talk — about parents, about his feelings. He wants to be validated as part of the ‘adventure,’ the faithful and compassionate sidekick to the emotionally stunted (literally at the moment) hero. So he jerks his head back as if in ecstasy, moaning to egg him on. Christopher, reluctantly it seems, humps down in return.

Fine. If he needs encouragement… Draco reaches behind him and his fingers curl around his wand. Christopher spasms against him like a virgin as the fabric between them vanishes.

“Wh—what—”

“Shh,” Draco hisses, smirking as he feels himself hardening at last.


	6. Chapter 6

Draco wakes with his junk pressed against someone’s hip. The feeling is so foreign to him that for a moment he is two years ago, in London, with Joseph spread-eagle on top of him, but then the night comes back to him as the man lying half on him stirs. Christopher doesn’t wake, but his junk is pressed back against Draco’s hip and Draco can feel him hardening. Slowly, delicately, he slides himself out from under the man, Christopher’s pubic hair crunching softly against him. It transpired Christopher isn’t hairless, but he keeps himself tidy enough. He was actually a very good lover; Draco just wasn’t present enough to really benefit from it. As he pops free, Christopher’s now-erect penis follows him and points out at him from where he was lying a moment ago. The jolt makes the boy stir again and this time he sits up, blinking away the sleep crusted around his eyes.

Noticing his morning wood, he quickly draws his legs up and glances sheepishly at Draco, half in apology, half in invitation. Draco ignores him, though, and starts getting dressed in the clothes that clean themselves and soar over to him under his wand’s direction, making the muggle boy stare. It’s not that he’s not up for a second round — indeed, he could happily have sex the whole day what with the pent up energy from being in witness protection and then almost killed or kidnapped and then facing the prospect of doing it all over again — but the memory of last night washes over him, killing his own burgeoning erection and any desire to look Christopher in the face again. His face burns and he rushes to the bathroom, knowing full well how obvious his blushes are against his pale features.

Then there is the fact that Christopher is a muggle. A muggle. He’d never so much as looked at a muggle before, even a mud—muggleborn, and this…this was something he can never take back. He feels dirty, clogged, like his magic is hovering somewhere outside of him. And then he feels disgusted with himself for thinking it.

“Snap to it, son. The morning’s wasting,” the mirror barks at him, making him jump. He runs his wand through his hair until it’s back to its usual sleek perfection. A last strand has to be cajoled over to respect the part, and then he waves a floral, lemony scent over himself, barely aware of the fact it’s a scent he hasn’t used since Tobias.  
Back in the bedroom, he finds Christopher awkwardly half dressed in shirt, sweater and socks, holding his cap over his genitals. The effect is more obscene than if he had just stayed naked and Draco can’t think why the muggle is standing there using a hat for underwear, unless it’s some muggle mating ritual, until Christopher clears his throat and says, “Um, about my underpants. Are they, like, gone forever or…?” Fuck him for making this adorable.

“Here.” Draco points his wand at Christopher’s crotch and the boy gasps as fabric appears there, snug around his waist.

“Thanks. I wasn’t looking forward to going commando for this. Sounds like it’s going to be exciting enough as it is.” He grins as he twists his cap into place, but his smile falters when Draco’s face doesn’t change from its insolent deadpan and he turns, awkward again, to find his trousers.

“They’re on the table.”

“Oh, right,” Christopher laughs shakily. Then, more seriously, “Look, Adam, we’ve got this. We’ll get her back. I know I don’t know anything about magic, about your world but—”

“Right, you don’t,” Draco says shortly. Christopher’s face closes in on itself and he nods, turning away again to straighten the bed. No. That was rude, his mind reminds him. Fix it. “Christopher, I’m sorry. Thank you for…It’s brave of you to do this when you’re not, you know, a wizard.” Merlin, talk about overkill. What are you a fucking Gryffindor?

But the muggle’s smiling. “Call me Chris.”

That’s not going to happen. “You said you’ve seen me before.”

Christopher chuckles. “Sure. You stick out a bit, you know. Green velvet? Those blue bell-bottoms? Not exactly normal country attire. Plus,” he blushes. “Aren’t many good looking blokes in our town.” Ok, time to go. Draco holds out a hand. “Breakfast?” He nods.

Muriel’s serving up fried eggs and toast when they appear in the kitchen, Christopher winded and grinning from the apparition. “You start on these,” she says, “and I’ll bring some more over when they’re through.”

Draco’s not sure why she doesn’t just summon them to the table, but maybe she wants some time to herself since today is pretty important to her. The kettle follows them to the table and Christopher nearly sends it flying when he notices it pouring tea for him. And then he notices the pictures on the wall and there’s a full three minutes of explanation and renewed excitement. By then Muriel’s finished the rest of the eggs and brought them over along with an extra rack of toast before bustling off into the next room to give her owl his breakfast.

“Oh, and the sketch artist will be around any minute now so give me a shout if they get here before I’m out.”

Draco nearly shoots out of his chair. He completely forgot about the sketch artist. How much are they likely to see when they examine Christopher’s mind? “Listen,” he says urgently and quietly to Christopher, uncomfortably aware that Muriel is only an open door away. “When this sketch artist gets here they’re going to look into your mind, it’s what they do.” He waves frantically at the boy to keep him from interrupting and throws a glance toward the room where Muriel is chatting to her owl. “Just listen! When they do, they’re going to try to get you to focus on the attack but anything that pops up in your mind, they will see.” He looks at him meaningfully and is pleased to see his expression change to horror. “You can not think about last night. Just block it out. Think only about the attack.”“Say no more, I got it,” Christopher says grimly and they return to their toast. “Geez, bit invasive, isn’t it?”

“Well they are going to wipe it from your memory anyway.” Draco looks up in time to see the boy’s face twist bitterly. A crack prevents him from saying anymore, and a tall witch in mauve appears at their side.

“Ah, good morning,” Muriel says, joining them. “Chris, if you’d like to follow me; you two can use my study.”

Draco finishes his toast, feeling anxiety prickle at his stomach, and waits. When ten minutes have passed he gets up and begins magicking the dishes clean and stacking them with their fellows in the cupboards. After that, he strides around, peering at the photographs, the agapanthus in the garden, even the grain of the table. At long last the witch returns, followed by Christopher, who gives Draco the thumbs up behind her back.

“Not at all conclusive,” she’s saying, “but you did very well, dear. Now all that remains is the memory charm.” She raises her wand, but Muriel hurries out again.

“I think you’d best leave that to me,” she says. The Ministry witch looks scandalized, but Muriel shakes a stern finger at her. “I’m a qualified watch-witch. Obliviation is my job. You may be well versed in legilimency, but—”

“Fine! Have it your own way,” the witch says irritably. And disapparates without another word.

“There’s that problem solved,” Muriel says, and shoos Christopher back into his chair. “Now, for the rest of the day. It’s only an hour till noon, so I think we’ll have lunch before we set off, but first we’ll straighten out the plan.” She produces a bundle of shimmery fabric and lays it on the table; an invisibility cloak. It’s the rattiest cloak he’s ever seen, invisible or not, even worse than Sprout’s day cloak, but he decides not to comment.

“That’ll only fit one of us.”

“That’s just for me — I’ll be waiting in the grounds while you two go in for the painting.”

He stares at her. “So you’re going to be invisible and we’re just going to walk in?” He’s surprised to find her grinning.

“You actually gave me an idea for that. I’m going to turn you and Mr. Jenkins here into birds.” She waits. Draco wants to snort and say what a stupid plan, but he’s impressed in spite of himself. Christopher’s expression has reverted back to the one now most familiar to Draco — barely contained excitement. You’d think being abruptly transformed into a bird after an aggressive incursion on your back garden would have the opposite effect, but muggles will be muggles. “This,” she says, resuming and pulling a tiny pouch from the folds of the cloak, “has an extension charm on it, so once you find the painting, you’ll be able to pop it in here and tie it to Guilfy’s leg.”

Hold up. “The owl’s coming?”

“I need someone to keep an eye on you. Besides, that’s the other thing. Once you’ve reached the painting, you need to turn back into humans to get her off the wall and into the bag. You won’t be able to lift the spell yourself, so you need to me to reverse the spell through the window.”

That sounds like a terrible idea. “Why don’t you just come with us under the cloak?”

She shakes her head. “This thing won’t hold up under scrutiny. It’ll keep me inconspicuous in the grounds, but inside? I’ll be lucky if I’m as transparent as one of the ghosts. No, what we’ll do is you walk me around to where I can get a good view of the window and you’ll fly up to find which one is closest. I won’t be able to see you — you’ll be too small and my eyes aren’t great, but Guilfy has eyes that can see a mouse a mile off and he can point me right. Then he’ll fly up, you put the pouch on his leg, he comes down, I turn you into birds again, and we all make for the boundary quick as we can.” She claps her hands together. “How does that sound?”

Bonkers, but honestly, who expects a portrait to get stolen? “Why don’t we do a geminius charm to buy ourselves time?”

“A what?” Muriel asks, startled, and he’s reminded that she didn’t actually go to Hogwarts herself. Perhaps her education is lacking in some areas.

“A duplicating charm,” he says, ignoring the grin on Christopher’s face. “It won’t move and no one will be able to get in, but if we — I — make it look like she’s sleeping…”

“That’s brilliant. Yes, Adam, that would be lovely.” He still can’t quite take it seriously that this sweet, middle-aged woman is planning to rob Hogwarts and then help him break protective custody. She’s even gotten a muggle out of a memory charm. “Well, I’ll whip up some lunch and we’ll be off!”

Lunch takes no time at all — meat pies from the freezer — and then they’re gathered in a tight group with the owl on Muriel’s arm, hands held tightly, bracing for the apparition. Muriel leads the first jump, to a heathered field somewhere in the Dales. Draco takes the second, bringing them to a wizarding alley in Durham. They take a couple jumps along the coast and take a breather when they get to Edinburgh, deciding to have a snack in Holyrood Park as Muriel had the foresight to bring apples.

Crunching them and looking across at the castle, they fall into an amicable silence. This is truly the most bizarre experience of Draco’s life: eating a mealy apple with a muggle-loving (muggle-friendly? Muggle-positive?) watch-witch, and a muggle whom he’s seen naked and felt pressed hard up against him, preparing a heist and rescue mission. Muriel finishes first and announces she’s going to take a quick stroll to get her blood flowing again so she trudges off down the hill. Draco stands, too, but his foot gets caught in a rabbit hole and he falls back to the ground, arms out to catch himself.

A loud bang sends him jumping back to his feet, looking wildly around. Christopher imitates him and lets out a small scream. What in the name of Merlin’s most bunched up knickers—

A bright purple, triple-decker bus has appeared on the lip of the hill and sways ominously as it comes to halt in front of them. A tiny boy of maybe nineteen or twenty hops out and begins the speech. “Merlin, Creevey, what are you doing?” Draco shouts.

“Malfoy!” the boy squeaks looking terrified as Draco shoves past him to stick his head toward the driver.

“Shunpike, this is not a road and I didn’t call you.”

“Blimey, Den, who’s that angry fellow back there wi’ yuh?”

“It’s Dra—”

“Kindly do not finish that sentence,” Draco says sharply to Creevey, who turns pink. “Now get on and tell Shunpike to take a course in magical driving.”

“Right oh! On we go, Stan!” The little boy shouts, and the bus vanishes with another bang.

“What the hell was that?” Christopher says, shaking as if he’s just seen a ghost.

“The Knight Bus. Stick out your wand arm and it appears and takes you wherever you want to go in Britain.”

“Just like that?” Christopher whispers. “Why didn’t we take that?”

“Because, as you might have noticed, it’s about the least inconspicuous means of transport known to humankind. Merlin help those poor fools,” Draco adds in a mutter to himself.

“Jesus,” Christopher says. It must be some kind of swear.

“Shesus?” Draco repeats, bemused.

Christopher looks dumbfounded. “You—you do know who Jesus is, don’t you?”

“No of course not. I suppose you don’t know who Merlin is.”

“Of course I do!” Christopher says. He looks almost alarmed. “But—Jesus! Come on! He’s, like, the most famous person in history!”

“Muggle history, maybe,” Draco says, not really interested.

“But you must have Christmas!” he persists.

“Yes…”

“Well there you are then,” Christopher says, as if this proves something. “Jesus Christ, the son of God, born on Christmas, the year one. That’s why it’s called Christ-mas.”

Hm. That might actually be true; Draco’s not sure where the name comes from, and he’s heard of some magical families who go to churches — that must be related — but that doesn’t change the festival itself. “Whatever it’s called, it’s the winter festival. The solstices are the most magical times of the year and celebrations go back long before the year one.” He looks slyly at Christopher’s troubled face. “You gone off magic, now?”

The boy smiles bashfully and Draco wonders, suddenly nervous, it he took it as an innuendo. “Oh, of course not. I was just surprised is all. Look, there’s Muriel.”


	7. Chapter 7

It takes them five more jumps before they get to the village of Hogsmeade where they disappear quickly into a thicket of bushes near the boundary to the Hogwarts grounds. “Quickly, quickly!” Muriel hisses. Guilfy blinks sternly at them from her shoulder as they fall through the branches.

“So what happens now?” Draco asks. For answer, Muriel holds up her wand. Draco braces himself. “Alright. You know what you’re doing right?” But before he’s finished the question, he feels himself shrinking. Points of fire erupt on every inch of his skin as feathers bloom from his pores and his face — he can’t even describe the sensation of bone structure melting into beak, of eyes floating apart from one another, suddenly blind with an influx of color he didn’t know exists. The tail would be embarrassing if his legs hadn’t already shriveled away to bony sticks and his toes ripped apart into talons. Then, of course, there are the wings.

Christopher is hopping delightedly around on the ground beside him, flapping his wings as if he’s eager to get going. It’s not until he looks around that he realizes Muriel is a skyscraper, literally towering over them. The distant figure of Guilfy sends shivers of primordial terror through his paper-light bones, but he suppresses this trying to focus on the words Muriel is saying.

“Now let’s be off, but don’t stray too far till we’re underneath the tower. Which way?” And Draco leads them on, Christopher twittering gaily at his side. Christopher’s excitement is infectious, and Draco can’t help but imitate him as he spirals skyward and dive-bombs a surprised squirrel three times his size and then rockets upward again. At some point he notices they’re not goldfinches but some kind of sparrow, and he wonders if the muggle can tell the difference or if he’s too wrapped up in the pleasure of flying to care.

Gryffindor Tower is not hard to find and soon they are fluttering in its shadow, and with a thumbs up from Muriel, he and Christopher soar up to its peak. This is completely different from messing around three feet above the earth. He feels himself paling beneath his feathers as the ground drops away and the wind takes him. For one horrifying moment it seizes him and throws him toward the hard stone as if to smash him against it, but then it dies and he’s left to catch himself and continue upwards. Finally he lands, dizzy and shaking on a sill and peers inside. He has to try a couple windows before he finds the right level — he knows the place because all the Slytherins at one time or another tried to get into the Gryffindor common room, whether to turn the hangings green as Draco had intended, or to turn the beds into snakes as Blaise suggested. As far as he knows, no one ever made it. The Gryffindors certainly didn’t let on if they had. There’s a click and the window swings open — that must be Muriel, aided by Guilfy. And then he dives inside as he feels the counter curse hit him and he begins the painful transformation back into a disheveled young man, now complete with a splitting headache.

Christopher helps him to his feet and a loud, imperial voice barks at them: “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

“Ha!” Draco says triumphantly. “Christopher, meet the Fat Lady.”

Christopher beams at the woman dressed in a magnificent and long outdated pink, silk dress, glowering down at them from the wall. “It’s so wonderful to meet you, ma’am.”

She’s taken aback at this, and Draco seizes his chance before she starts telling them off. He explains quickly and as quietly as he can who sent them and what they’re here to do. Half of him is expecting her to deny knowing Muriel or anything about the plan as half of him still kind of thinks of the watch-witch as an inventive eccentric, but instead she smiles warmly at them. “I do apologize. I am of course most grateful to the pair of you, however I don’t remember ever seeing you about the castle. Both in other houses, I’ll be bound?”

“Er,” Christopher says awkwardly.

“Homeschooled, is it?” she asks, kindly.

“How do you say it? Mug—” he turns to Draco for help.

“He’s a muggle, and I was in Slytherin,” Draco says, hoping this won’t count against him.

“A muggle! My dear!” The lady seems paralyzed with delight, almost as excited as Christopher confronted with new magic. “And of course, you must be—” she says, turning a little sourly to Draco.

“Ah, yes, I’m actually trying not to draw attention to that right now,” he says, and she nods in stiff acknowledgement.

“Well, I really am flustered. I knew this was coming but, goodness, it’s a hard thing to say goodbye so suddenly — dear!” She calls to a painting across the hall from them and a shepherd looks up from her flock. “Would you be so kind as to run along and tell Violet down by the Great Hall that the thing I told her about is happening today? Thank you dear. Run along now.”

A flurry of wings, far larger than his had been, announces Guilfy’s arrival. He perches on the sill of the open window and holds out his leg from which Draco takes the pouch. “We’re going to put you in here,” Draco explains to the Fat Lady, and goes to lift a corner of her frame. “Christopher, can you—”

“No, no. Take me down, someone’s bound to raise the alarm within minutes,” she says in a sharp whisper. “No, come with me. I’ve got another portrait all set up. That way they’ll think I’ve gone off visiting. Much better, much less fuss.”

She trots off, beckoning warmly to Christopher who makes to follow, but Draco stands there a moment. An odd feeling has just settled on him as she smiled at Christopher. She’s a muggle, probably the only muggle ever to make it into a moving portrait before the invention of the camera, and here she is, a cornerstone of life at one of the most respected wizarding institutions in the world. And Draco is taking her away. The feeling bubbles unpleasantly and he stares after the pink skirts rustling past two dueling wizards who politely step aside to make room for her. One of them even doffs his cap. The feeling troubles him because it is the same feeling he got when his father told him of the Chamber of Secrets opening for the first time, and how a muggleborn had died. It is the feeling of rightness, of things being as they are meant to be, of people being sorted as his parents always taught him was proper: muggle and wizard, pureblood and muggleborn, wizard and witch, rich and poor. She doesn’t belong here, and just like Slytherin’s monster, Draco is ridding the school of the muggle in its walls: how is that a good thing? Isn’t he just as bad as his parents if he wipes out this, to them, indecent history?

“Adam?” Christopher lays a hand on his arm and Draco flinches so badly he stares. “Are you alright? You look ill.”

“Are you coming or not?” the lady calls crossly back at them.

“I’m fine,” he says, battling the noxious feeling as it threatens to make him puke. “I don’t know if being a bird agreed with me is all. Go on, I’m fine.” And he follows the muggle — muggles — down the hallway. No, he thinks. It’s not for him to decide if she stays or not, not for him to decide if the world knows her story or not; those are her decisions, that is her life, inasmuch as she has one.

The little painting she leads them to has a frame even more elaborate than her own, but it is small and the background is simple, if elegant — a dark, Vermeer-like background, empty but for a chair and a table with teacup and steaming teapot. The vague curtains in the back clash a little with her dress, but he supposes she can redecorate if she finds a willing painter somewhere.

“Well, go on then!” she snaps impatiently, and then a little more kindly, “and I do thank you, boys. It will be nice to be out of this place even if...” she lets out a sigh. Draco can lift this one down by himself, so Christopher holds the pouch out for him. He’s surprised Christopher hasn’t asked how they’re going to fit the painting in, but he seems to have figured it out and is watching the frame disappear into the impossibly small bag with immense enjoyment. Finally, she is completely in and Christopher rushes back up the corridor to tie the drawstring to Guilfy’s leg. Draco considers the blank section on the wall for a moment, but it doesn’t seem to stand out as missing a picture, so he follows Christopher back to the window to wait for Muriel’s curse.

The flight back to the ground feels much more like flying on a broomstick as he does very little with his wings, letting gravity do the work. Muriel, already at the boundary, grows and grows until she is right in front of them, wand pointed directly at them and then…she vanishes, and he realizes with a jolt of surprise it’s because she’s wearing the old invisibility cloak, which, for some reason, didn’t have any effect on him when he was a bird.

He gets to his feet, stretching away the last of the strange sensation of having wings instead of arms and next to him Christopher does the same.

“Well done, lads,” Muriel says conspiratorially, stuffing the cloak away now. As the three of them clasp hands, Christopher stands very close to Draco and grips his hand in a tight, oddly close hold. His eyes and expression are full of a wild eagerness, like there’s still something of the bird inside him.


	8. Chapter 8

God, is he ever going to cum? His arms are shaking under him and his abdomen is ready to give out as he rolls his hips downward, plunging into Christopher again and again. He doesn’t remember it being this difficult. Two years in witness protection must have dried up his stamina, or maybe it’s this fucking glove Christopher insisted he wear over his cock that makes it feel like he's been turned inside out. When this is over, he’s going to make a fucking balloon animal out of it and enchant it to follow this muggle ass around, Statute of Secrecy be damned. The thought sobers him a little; the poor bloke’s going to get his memory wiped eventually. He’s never known a muggle before, but Christopher drinks up magic like it’s better than sex, which probably isn’t the best analogy to make given Draco’s substandard performance last time. The only thing Christopher seems to like better than magic is magic during sex; he nearly passed out from excitement when Draco used a lubricant charm on him. He probably came the second Draco pushed inside of him, but he still seems to be enjoying himself.

Merlin, it can’t have been more than a couple minutes since they started fucking, five at most since they got naked in the first place, and yet Draco can’t hold himself up any longer. His arms buckle beneath him and he collapses onto Christopher’s back, working his hands around to grip the boy’s shoulders to give him some sort of leverage as he continues to rock his hips into the spongy flesh of Christopher’s backside.

He’s sort of getting used to the compressed feeling of the condom — it feels like his dick is apparating by itself, which is strange but surprisingly manageable. But damn it, if his dick doesn’t feel watery within that double tightness of the condom and Christopher’s ass — less like wood and more like a worm. Can sex with a muggle really make you impotent? No, that’s ridiculous. Think of the literal millions of half-bloods out there. What then? What is so wrong with him that he can’t stay —

“Agh!” He lets out a particularly guttural sound, and Christopher bucks back against him, apparently thinking it a moan, but Draco had seen with awful clarity those vicious, cold, murderous, red eyes staring at him out of the darkness. The growl wasn’t in fear or anger — it definitely wasn’t in lust — but in despair. He knows he’s not scared of the Dark Lord anymore. He doesn’t have nightmares about the torture and murder his former master performed in front of him or made him perform. He doesn’t even dream of Dumbledore anymore, or the werewolf, Fenrir. No, what he felt when those eyes flashed into his own was the painful acknowledgement that whatever he tells himself, he is still a Malfoy, still branded with the Dark Mark, however deep it hides under enchantments of concealment, still…it sounds so childish…bad.

Fuck. His erection, so hard won, is in full retreat now, collapsing under the force of plastic and flesh around it, and he curses himself. Once is annoying, twice is a pattern. Is he going to think of the Dark Lord every time he has sex? Christopher’s muscles clamp down as if to try to hold him in but he’s already deflated, slipping out of his ass, even the condom. He rolls off to the side and wipes sweat from his face with his hands.

Christopher rolls over, too, looking concerned. “Did you finish or do you need—”

“No! I came. It—” But Christopher has pulled the condom from between his cheeks and both their eyes go to the clearly empty tube.

“I’m sorry,” Christopher says, and it’s just as bad as last time, worse even, and he seems to see that in Draco’s expression because he stammers on, “if I made you feel like you had to do this. I didn’t mean to force myself on you.”

“You did, rather, didn’t you?” Draco muses, too exhausted to listen to the voice in his head just now. Well, it’s true. It’s not like you could misconstrue ‘Fuck me, Adam,’ as anything else. They hadn’t even left Muriel’s yet when Christopher stepped in close to him and whispered it in his ear, and either Christopher opened his pants during apparition or he did it while they were still standing in Muriel’s kitchen as she cleaned up after supper. Horny fucker. The magic of the day must have been too much for him.

They lie, side by side, not bothering to get beneath the covers or even realign themselves with the cushions. At least there’s no mess to clean this time, he thinks, remembering his wand is somewhere on the floor, tossed aside after lubricating Christopher’s ass. And then a cold feeling washes over him as he realizes he doesn’t know if Christopher came at all, if he’s lying there hard and unfinished or sticky in his own fluids. It’s too late to ask.

◆◆◆

When he opens his eyes again, Christopher is already fully clothed. He waits to look at Draco until he’s put his boxers on and is looking blearily around for the rest of his clothes and his wand. “You know there are drugs for,” he blushes. “You know, for getting your dick up there.”

Well that was to the point. “You mean remedies?” Draco asks, sill blinking back the brightness of sun coming through the curtains.

“Sure, whatever you call them.”

Draco snorts. “Catch me using muggle remedies.”

Christopher looks nettled. “Well isn’t there some magical ‘remedy’ you can use then? Haven’t you got doctors?”

“Healers, sure.” Draco stretches hugely and begins pulling on his socks. “I’m not about to go into St. Mungo’s and let the entire wizarding world know that Dra—that my junk doesn’t work.”

Christopher sits silent for a moment in that way that tells Draco he’s thinking again, then says, “Does ‘doctor’ — sorry — ‘healer-patient confidentiality’ mean anything to you?”

“What the fuck is that?” Draco says, not really wanting an answer.

“Oh,” Christopher says in a small voice and doesn’t speak again.

Christopher’s hand feels small in his when he takes it to apparate over to Muriel’s, quite different from yesterday when it had been gripping and writhing, almost pulsing during their apparitions back from Scotland. He lets go of it quickly when they appear in the kitchen and Muriel looks up from the pot of oatmeal she’s watching.

“Good morning, dears.” Her smile fades slightly when she sees this and Draco wonders if she knows how close — physically, Draco thinks quickly — he and Christopher have gotten. She’d probably love to think she’d gotten pureblood icon Draco Malfoy hitched to a muggle nobody. Well, she would be disappointed. All they’ve had is sex and not good sex at that and when this is all over, Christopher won’t remember any of it anyway.

The two of them sit down, avoiding each other’s gaze, and wait politely as Muriel magicks bowls of oatmeal over to the table and sets to work on the toast — browning and buttering it piece by piece. She watches them closely as they shake cinnamon over their bowls and begin eating. “I’ve been thinking,” she says with a significant look at Christopher, “that you should start thinking about what you want to do once we’ve saved Adam’s mother.”

He looks up, tense as a deer that’s spotted a hunter, and Draco does, too. What does she mean? “Well, I assumed you’d need to wipe my memory and send me back home…”

“Honey, do you really think I’m that cruel?” She finishes buttering the toast and floats it through the air to land on their plates. “You’re not the first muggle I’ve turned free. If we obliviated every muggle who saw magic in York, we wouldn’t have time to stand still. I told you before, half my family are muggles.”

“I thought you said they were squibs,” Draco says, though this really isn’t the part his mind is focussing on.

“Squibs, muggles, what is the difference in the end?” she says sourly. “I’ve got both in the family, and frankly I think they’ve got a right to choose whether they know. The government doesn’t go obliviating squibs, now do they? And they don’t obliviate muggles who marry witches or wizards either,” she adds blandly, passing Draco the orange juice. Draco feels his face flushing pink and hurriedly takes a large gulp.

“I don’t know,” Christopher says, looking elated but depressed at the same time. “Of course I don’t want to forget, but going back when I know all of this is real—”

“Dear, you’re thinking small. I know plenty of folks in the area who are in your situation. I could introduce you.”

This is too much, too far, and Draco opens his mouth to say something, to put a stop to this ridiculous fantasy, but then he closes it again. Christopher looked positively jubilant while Muriel suggested this, but now his eyes flick furtively to Draco’s and there is a question there, like he’s asking his permission, and that is just not something Draco can engage with. He stands up and excuses himself for the bathroom. Rather than use Muriel’s, he just apparates back to the attic apartment and sits on the closed toilet, rubbing his face as if he can rub the feeling of Christopher’s gaze, lips, and other bits off it. Let the muggle keep his memory if he wants; he needs to focus on the task at hand. With a jolt he remembers his father downstairs, alone and probably just where Draco left him, staring blankly at the mirror opposite the bed.

But he doesn’t go down to him. He will see him after, once they’ve found her. If he wants to take his food in his room, let him. He apparates back to Muriel’s kitchen where she’s washing the dishes (with magic of course) and Christopher is watching in typical fascination.

“Ah, Adam!” Muriel says with a flick of her wand that sends the clean dishes back to their places. “I thought we’d start with the records at the Minster Library. See what families live around here, and from there we can decide if we want to do house calls, or something else. How does that sound?”

“That sounds perfect,” he says. “Are you ready, or should we—”

“No, these can do themselves. Christopher?” Muriel takes their hands and a moment later they are standing on bouncy earth under a clump of large-leafed trees. A very old building with a small side-door belonging to sometime in the middle ages rises before them and over its angled roof, the towers of York Minster shine yellow in the morning sun between the leaves. Muriel only has to tap once on the thick wooden door for it to swing — perhaps swing is the wrong word — grind laboriously open.

Christopher looks a little disappointed at the interior; no doubt he was expecting flying books and more moving pictures, but the walls inside are barren and the books in the foyer are neat in their rows, if faded and occasionally peeling. The clerk speaks briefly with Muriel before pointing them through to another room down a small flight of stairs, which, despite them being underground, has a splendid view of the chapter house through tall, narrow windows. The room they empty out on has the same windows running along the right-hand side, and the sunlight streaming in somehow permeates the room despite the large, mahogany bookshelves arranged maze-like across the floor. Christopher turns back and lets out a little yelp and when Draco turns as well he sees an enormous tapestry covering the wall through which they entered depicting the burning of London by several Welsh Greens. This of course is moving, hence Christopher’s yelp. Muriel pulls Draco on into the stacks, letting Christopher stand, entranced by the dancing flames and swooping dragons.

“Records are down here on the right,” she whispers, letting go of him as they arrive at the back of the room where a small, round table is squashed between bookshelves and piled high with scrolls. “Though there isn’t a modern census on hand. We’ll have to poke through the histories.”

Excellent. If there was one thing he was expecting to do after he left Hogwarts, it was more homework. Sighing, he selects a few of the thinner volumes and lets them thunk onto the table before setting to work. Muriel moves off through the stacks looking for more material and doesn’t reappear, and eventually Christopher joins him at the table.

He pulls down a book, too, and peruses it but doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing or have much heart for it because after a few minutes of paging along, he sets his hands upon it and looks up. “You think I should get my memory wiped, don’t you?”

Draco turns the page of the book he’s working on and sighs without looking up. “Yes, Christopher, I do.”

“Can I ask why?”

No, because the fragile concept of myself as a good person that I’ve worked to build up for the past few years would dissolve and I would likely never have an erection again, Draco thinks. He says, instead: “If we stop obliviating muggles, the statute of secrecy — that’s what keeps us hidden — will fall apart and society will have to be completely rewritten.”

Christopher fidgets with the corner of his book. “And that’s a bad thing?”

Draco rolls his eyes at the page. “Of course it is. Muggles and wizards — we’re not compatible. Muggles will want us to work for them, and wizards—” Voldemort’s face flashes again across his mind. “Wizards would take advantage of muggles. They might even kill them.”

“Kill them?” Christopher looks shocked. Naive little muggle.

“Sure. They did it recently, too. Just a few years ago there was…a war. This bad wizard with a huge anti-muggle following came to power, he even took over the government, but…” Draco face is flushed, he knows it, but Christopher won’t look away. “He was defeated.”

“A war?” Christopher’s eyes just keep getting wider. “What, here in the UK?”

“Yes. It really started that year you had — I think the cover story was a storm. A freak storm.”

“The freak hurricane?”

“That’s the one.”

“Fuck. I had no idea. That was an awful year but I just…I don’t know. Everything just seemed miserable.” Draco doesn’t have the heart to tell him that was probably because of the nightmarish creatures called Dementors. Especially if he isn’t going to have his memory wiped. Nobody needs to be worried about invisible, soul-and-happiness-sucking monsters floating through the countryside.

“It’s not like muggles didn’t do their share of violence back when they knew we existed,” Draco adds — defensively? “You know about witch burnings, don’t you?”

“Well, sure.” But he’s not going to be distracted. “Oh, Adam. Was the war really terrible? Could you…were you able to avoid most of the…” he trails off as Draco just looks at him, and he seems to get at least some of the answer. Well of course he does; Draco’s eyes are stinging suddenly, and the hand turning yet another page shakes so that the parchment crackles angrily. Was he able to avoid it? Fuck no. He volunteered for it. He caused it. He almost killed two of his classmates (which he regrets even if the Weasley was a dung-filled, rat-faced fucker). And he and his parents only escaped Azkaban because of Shacklebolt policy of forgiveness and Potter’s generous — yes, Draco, it was — defense. His mind reels through layers of well-trodden angst as his breath becomes suddenly, embarrassingly ragged, and he stares at the page like he’s expecting a window to open in it that he can jump through and escape Christopher’s delicate eyes.

The hand that comes down on his is soft and tender. The contact is shockingly new and unfamiliar, despite the fact the hand has touched almost every part of his body in incredibly lewd and tender ways. His eyes close at the touch and it’s like he exists only in his hand, because how else could he feel so enveloped, so calmed by the light pressure resting on his knuckles? It lasts only a moment, but several days seem to skip by as he breathes in and out, the choked sob waiting in his throat slowly subsiding, surrendering until he feels okay to open his eyes again.

When he does, he’s relieved to see that Christopher is looking down at his book again, and retracts his hand without comment.


	9. Chapter 9

It’s not until eleven that something interesting happens. Before that, it’s just the numbing tedium of coming across a wizarding household in Thisby-on-Ouze, copying the name down, and then reading a few lines later that the family moved or died out years ago. Muriel checks in occasionally; she seems to do better standing at the shelf, flipping through the book, returning it, and moving on to the next one than bringing them back to the table. Christopher is completely useless, but gets into reading the wizarding history after a while and burying himself in ‘ _Lands of Yorkshire: notable happenings_.’ The tiny and sloppily printed type, or in some cases flourishing lacy script, combined with the dust floating through the room makes Draco’s eyes itchy and tired. He’s on the point of suggesting a break when Christopher lets out a shout and grabs his wrist, sending tingles up his arm.

“Oh my god, Adam! It’s Greengrass!” He looks up, breathless with excitement. “That’s your last name, right? Or your fake last name?”

Draco blinks. That seems an awfully large coincidence, but he’d know if the Greengrasses had a house in Yorkshire. The Malfoy’s Yorkshire residence (or what had been their residence until the war) can only be twenty or thirty miles from Thisby-on-Ouze, and he can’t remember Greengrass being on any of the Notable Northern Houses list his mother kept there.

“Wait,” Christopher says, his face falling as he reads on. “It’s dated 1749. Never mind. ‘ _The Greengrass family owned a small summer estate known as Greengrass Cottage outside Thisby-on-Ouse…owned for several centuries…The gardens are said to contain the largest variety of hopping stumps north of the Thames_.’ ” He looks up again. “Can you really grow hopping stumps?”

“Let me see that,” Draco says and rips it out of Christopher’s hands. ‘Rips’ is maybe an overstatement as the book weighs about as much as a suit of armor. Yes, there’s the name heading a piece on the Noble Houses of the North, perhaps a precursor to his mother’s list. There are several pages of history on the estate but eventually he reaches a section that looks promising titled ‘Longley and Greengrass.’

> _The Longley family was just as old as the Greengrass family, though its roots were here in the North, whereas Greengrass Cottage was merely a retreat for the respected southern family. The end of the 1600s saw a marked increase of interest in defined territory, with lines of property being contested over as little as a low stone wall or a birdbath (see Leadforth Castle), and the tension between the estates of the two families was, perhaps, the most notable and violent examples of this. The Longleys, based at Longley Castle, owned land that bordered that of the Greengrasses at the village of Swallows Crossing, and at this time both families claimed ownership of the village. The feud lasted almost eighty years and claimed the lives of several members of each family until the year 1749 when Lady Regia Longley became Minister of Magic. At this point, the Greengrass name was greatly weakened and its standing in both North and South had dropped to its lowest respectability either before or since. This was due to Prince Darius Greengrass’ many scandalous escapades through muggle London which are detailed in the following chapter. Despite the family’s weakened state, Lady Regia extended an offer to Lord Albert, the Greengrass patriarch, and the result was a peace treaty of sorts that ended the conflict. The terms were as follows: that the Greengrass family reject Prince Darius’ muggle-fondness, that Lord Albert express public support for the Minister, Lady Regia, that the Greengrass Yorkshire estate be renamed Longley Cottage and one-fifth of the tithe raised by the estate go to the Longley family. In return, Swallows Crossing would be recognized as part of the Greengrass estate (now under Longley name), and the Greengrass family would be permitted to remain in residence at the Cottage for one month out of the year. Lord Albert agreed to the terms shortly after the offer was extended, and the family has used the Cottage as one of several summer retreats ever since._

Draco finishes reading and slaps his hand down. This is it. It makes perfect sense — the Greengrasses might not have been Death Eaters, but they are one of those families that believe fiercely in pureblood superiority, and with the Dark Lord gone and the Malfoys as traitors to the cause…they might have decided to take revenge on them. “Christopher, you’ve done it!” he practically shouts, and without thinking about it at all, grabs the muggle by the head and pulls him in for a hard, brief kiss. When he lets him go, Christopher is blushing ear to ear and Draco can feel himself turning crimson. “Uh,” he backpedals, literally moving away from Christopher as much as he can in the cramped space. “Lunchtime, I think. Shall we—?” and he’s gone, squeezed past the table’s edge and tip-toe running through the stacks in search of Muriel.

The watch-witch is beside herself with pleasure when he tells her of their discovery and gives Draco a congratulatory hug and peck on the cheek, and the same to Christopher when he appears behind them, still red and bashful. They exit through the muggle-side of the building, which is surprisingly similar to the magical one, and while Muriel trots off to get them something from a nearby cafe, he and Christopher find a patch of muggle-free grass to stretch out on.

Christopher is doing his best not to look at Draco and pulls out his phone. Against his will, Draco’s eyes are drawn to it as the screen melts from image to image or slides between them as Christopher swipes his thumb across it. After a minute, he realizes he’s become as entranced as Christopher watching the dishes this morning, and another minute before he realizes Christopher is watching him out of the corner of his eye and grinning.

He clears his throat and points at the phone. “That really is clever.”

“What is?”

“The way your phone responds to your touch like that.”

The boy raises his eyebrows suggestively, seeming unable to help himself. “Want to see if I respond to your touch?” He chuckles so Draco doesn’t have to say anything and taps something that transforms the screen into a mirror. “Check this out.” He holds the phone out to Draco who takes it, bemusedly. Looking down at it, he sees himself looking back, blond hair radiant in the sunlight, eyes shadowed under his arching brows; impressive, but not mind-blowing technology. Then he yelps as his face is transformed into the feathery head of a bird, wings flapping just behind. ‘What—?” He drops the phone, feeling his skin and hair, but nothing seems to have changed.

Christopher is laughing unrestrainedly now. “It’s just a picture,” he chortles, picking up the phone and tucking it away. “It doesn’t transform you.”

“I thought you turned me into a bird,” Draco says grouchily, but amused.

Still giggling, Christopher lies back in the lush grass and closes his eyes. Draco falls back beside him, watching him. “I liked being a bird,” the boy says, wistfully. “I’ve always been sort of obsessed with them; people would buy me birding books for birthdays and my cousins would joke that I was the first ornithologist in the family. Ornithologists are—”

“They study birds, I know. We have them, too.”

Christopher smiles broadly, eyes still closed. “God, that would be amazing. Do they study like specifically magical birds?”

“No, I think they do both,” Draco says, musingly. “There’s a reason we have spells that turn people into birds, you know, apart from entertainment.”

“You mean they study them by _being_ them? Fuck. Really, magic is amazing, but _being_ a bird? Flying?” He lets out a sigh like he’s orgasmed right there in his pants.

The sound makes Draco’s mouth go dry and oh, no, this can’t be happening. Something’s expanding inside his chest as his eyes trace the nose and lips and lashes of the boy beside him, something he’s only ever felt for Joseph. He supposes he also felt it for Pansy, in a way, but that was in school when they were teenagers, horny and new to ideas like love. No, this can’t be happening. And before he can stop himself, he thinks: _I can’t fall for a muggle_.

Ok, his brain says, caught in that feeling of moral fight-or-flight, Walk me back through that.

_Well, for one he needs to get his memory wiped_ , he thinks defensively.

That’s BS, his brain counters. You know he’s not going to, and how do you think wizards marry muggles if they don’t date first?

_We are_ NOT _talking about marriage_ , he pushes back aggressively.

Why not? Why can’t you consider marriage to someone like him? Is it because pure, proud, sexy Draco Malfoy can’t let himself be seen with an ignorant, lowlife muggle?

_No! It’s because_ — He gropes desperately at his own reason, wishing rather than believing it to be logical. _It’s because I barely know him. We’re different; we’re so fucking different._

His brain doesn’t have to say anything. He can say they’re ‘different’ all he likes, but it comes back to the simple fact: Christopher is a muggle, he is a wizard. Fucking, bloody, wretched, damn, damn. His brain is right. He’s tried so hard to change, to be a good person, to reject the views and habits of cruelty his parents brought him up with, but he’s overestimated himself. He hasn’t changed. Sure, he’s not horrible anymore; he’s polite; he can even apologize occasionally, but underneath his polite, changed exterior, under his regret and self-loathing, his pride is still there.

And Christopher. Christopher has shown him this, because Christopher represents everything Draco is ashamed of, everything he’s buried down. He is nice where Draco is cruel, he is attractive and sweet when Draco wants to think of muggles as stupid and ugly, he is intensely virile while Draco has become impotent — _ugh!_ That a _muggle_ can pity _him_ , Draco Malfoy! How is it Draco can think himself so superior when at the same time he feels like scum for all he’s done?

He sits up so suddenly he has to blink back the stars that erupt in his vision before he can properly focus on Christopher lying beside him, eyes closed, noticing nothing. _He_ is the answer. It’s not brave to be polite, to not sneer at and bully people. No, love is bravery, just like Potter says, fuck him. Love in the open where anyone can see him, judge him, kidnap him. He puts his hand out and lays it, trembling, against Christopher’s chest. Christopher doesn’t move, but Draco can feel his breathing stop and his heart begin to pump a little faster beneath his ribs. Slowly, as slowly as the first time they kissed, Draco sinks down. He kisses him there under the sun, among all the other muggles ranged on the grass, and it is bliss. Christopher’s hands come up to clutch at his hair, stroke his face, pull his lips closer. They trade tongues and breath like it’s a blood bond and don’t bother to surface until a bird lands directly beside them.

Draco starts when he looks up and meets the eyes of Muriel’s sharp-eyed owl, Guilfy. He pulls Christopher hastily up into a seated position and turns, looking around for the watch-witch. He spots her, just coming around the gate carrying a grease-stained bag and humming to herself. Once she’s only a few yards away, they get to their feet and join her at a bench where she opens the bag and hands out sausage rolls and apples. They don’t speak while they eat, but Christopher some how manages to end up with his thigh pressed against Draco’s and the heat makes Draco feel as sunny as the day. He smiles secretly into his sausage roll and doesn’t dare look at either of the other two. Instead, watching Guilfy pick at something Muriel dropped for him to eat, he says, “Muriel, you shouldn’t have an owl out in the daytime. People will notice.”

“It’s alright,” she says, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. “He’s got a glamor on him; no one will see. I thought it would be good to have an extra pair of eyes in case anyone’s taking an interest in you.”

“An interest?” Draco says, face creeping back toward crimson.

“Yes. If someone recognized you in Thisby-on-Ouze, York is a far riskier place.”

“Oh, of course.” Christopher’s arm brushes his shoulder and his brain wheels like the ravens soaring over the park, looking for scraps. He suddenly wishes he could conjure one of his childhood storm clouds to hide his burning face.

Muriel stands and stretches. “Back inside?” she asks.


	10. Chapter 10

Armed with all the information they can find on Longley Cottage and the surrounding grounds, the trio leaves the Minster Library just as the sky is turning pink and the sun has vanished beyond the city walls. The last hour has been particularly successful and Christopher bounds out from the door into two consecutive and impressive cartwheels across the grass. Pausing in the doorway, Draco steels himself to speak to Muriel.

“Um, I thought, to thank Christopher for helping us, I might take him out, show him the local scene. That way we don’t need to, I mean, you don’t have to feed us or anything. Just...” His face is pink as the sky when Muriel finally cuts him off.

“I’ll see you in the morning. You have a good time, and be safe.” She says this last with a stern but motherly stare, and twists into nothing on the spot.

Christopher jogs back to him at the sound of the crack. “Where’s she gone?”

“I told her we’d get our own food tonight,” Draco says slowly, watching his reaction. “I thought, you know, I could take you to one of the local wizarding pubs.” Now both of their faces are flaming, but Christopher holds out a hand. “We can walk there, you know,” Draco says.

“I know,” Christopher says, still holding out his hand.

Well then, they’re doing this. Draco takes a breath and reaches out his own hand to intertwine it with the muggle’s. “The Fossgate Feathers,” he explains, “is the only one I’ve been to in York, but I think you’ll find it the most entertaining. It’s got quite a history and attracts a range…” They saunter off through the gate, along cobbled and paved roads, dodging bicyclists, dogs, and muggles. It’s easy, much easier than Draco would have thought. Their different worlds gives them something to talk about, but even so, Christopher seems to understand him as he talks, even if he stops him now and then to clarify a point or define a word. Draco forgets, for a little while, the danger of tomorrow, the predicament of his mother, the depression of his father, and when he does remember, it doesn’t make him feel guilty. For once, he’s allowing himself to be happy because he knows it’s a good happiness, that it’s good for him, whether or not that goodness will extend to his parents. Who knows if they’ll ever be anything but what they are and have been.

Eventually, Draco pulls Christopher down a side alley that drops down before opening out into an odd little slanted courtyard with a half-building on one side under the brightly painted sign: _The Fossgate Feathers_. A roar of noise explodes from the pub as the dark, green door swings open, disgorging a couple of tipsy middle-aged women in lilac cloaks. They giggle at the sight of the two boys and then trot off down another alley that wraps around the back of the building.

Draco puts his hand on the door, but stops as he sees Christopher’s look of apprehension. “We don’t have to go if you don’t want. We could go to a muggle shop, get some chips, sit by the river.”

“No, I want to go,” Christopher says earnestly.

“Really, though,” Draco presses, already somewhat regretting his suggestion. “It can be a bit racy. I don’t know how muggles—”

“I’m not afraid of clubs, Adam.” He rolls his eyes to make his point. “It just sounds a bit crowded and—” he grins awkwardly. “I’m just worried I’ll step on someone’s tail or do something stupid.”

Draco laughs, he can’t help himself. “Don’t worry. If someone has a tail, which I doubt, it won’t be somewhere you’d step on it. Though do try to avoid walking through any of the ghosts. They won’t mind, but you won’t enjoy it.” Now it’s his turn to grin as he pushes inside, dragging a stunned Christopher behind him.

As he hoped, the Roman Ninth Legion is ranged along the far wall, booths packed with pearly, transparent bodies screaming for more ale they can’t drink. Living patrons fill the rest of the space, though most are jostling around a table in the center of the room where a roman soldier is dancing and stripping off his uniform piece by piece, egged on by the screams of the crowd. The man is short and stocky, with a chest that would make any cock rise. Well, Draco thinks wryly, noticing a distinct lack of activity between his own legs, perhaps not any cock. He’ll get there. A snort beside him makes him look around. Christopher is laughing so hard he has tears in his eyes, which he wipes away as more trickle down his cheeks.

“I need a very strong drink,” he shouts in Draco’s ear. So, Draco leads him over to the bar where a woman in a sheer, forget-me-not blue cloak serves them up two smoking warlocks.

“Drink up,” Draco says and clinks his glass against Christopher’s. He leans against the bar, and watches the boy’s face transform moment to moment under the flashing fairy lights. Occasionally Christopher will let out a whoop of surprise or encouragement to the stripper and then clap his hands, laughing at his own bravery or just the ridiculousness of the situation.

“Is he really a roman soldier?” he asks Draco once the dancer is completely nude and beckoning up one of the living men onto the table. They watch the ghost get down, applauding the new comer who begins stripping in an entirely different way, his dance modern and jerky, full of levels.

Finally Draco says, leaning into Christopher’s ear. “Yeah, that’s the Roman Ninth Legion. They were all killed by a Celtic war-mage — that’s her, over in the corner.” Another ghost, a massive and fierce-looking woman with a table all to herself, is applauding the new dancer with great enthusiasm, occasionally plunging her face into a large tankard left on the table in front of her.

“This is so…fucking bizarre,” Christopher says. He looks dazed as his gaze drifts from living to dead to hag and back again, but as happy as can be, so Draco just lets him look.

After a while, he orders pheasant and salad from the bartender and he and Christopher sit munching and watching as ghosts and living people trade the stage with varying states of shyness and talent.

A very drunk roman ghost stumbles over to the bar and tries to proposition Draco for a few minutes before one of his friends drags him off, apologizing in broken English.

“Would that even work?” Christopher shout-whispers to Draco as he watches the two soldiers swaying back into the thicket of ghostly bodies.

“Not even remotely,” Draco yells back. Even if he didn’t have erection problems, he imagines it would be difficult keeping it up there when you kept being doused by that icy cold you get when overlapping with a ghost.

Eventually a pair of witches with the most elaborate set of tattoos Draco's ever seen climb onto the table and begin a routine, giggling so hard they can barely stand. The music thumps louder and he turns to Christopher. “Do you want to…?” He raises his eyebrows and flicks his eyes to the table.

Christopher looks amazed. “Me?” Then he looks thoughtful. “No, I don’t think so. I’d much rather have a…a personal session.” And as his eyes lock on Draco’s, he knows the night is over. Draco doesn’t even show Christopher his wizard money as he drops it on the counter, focussing instead on getting them out through the crowd and out the door. When they’re out in the crisp night air, they pause to take a few breaths, sobering slightly. “Have you ever…” Christopher looks at Draco and gives a little shake of his hips which stops Draco’s heart for a moment. “I mean, you said you’ve been here before.”

“No. Once in London, but never here,” Draco says, smiling at Christopher’s admiring look. “I was very drunk at the time and luckily the story never got back to my parents. I do remember it being quite fun, though, until one of the friends I was doing it with accidentally kneed me in the balls while attempting the can-can.” Christopher slumps over in silent laughter and Draco steps to the side to let a large group past. _Tonight has been fun, too_ , he thinks, staring up at the stars while Christopher gets his breath back. _More than fun_.

A hand slips into his and Christopher gives him a kiss on the cheek before insisting he’s ready to go. ‘Ready and randy’ are his exact words, so Draco turns on the spot and they appear back in the tiny attic bedroom.

Once again he is amazed at the speed with which Christopher removes his own clothes. He supposes the muggle is used to slipping out of jeans, but Draco is less practiced with muggle clothes and isn’t naked until after Christopher is already spread out and waiting on the bed, cock erect and pointing at the ceiling. As Draco drops to him for a quick kiss, the boy pulls back. “Oh no! I forgot to strip for you!”  
  
“It doesn’t matter,” Draco says huskily. “You’re hotter than any of them as it is.” He bounces down on the bed beside him and sinks a hand to his crotch, rolling his genitals as he continues to kiss his…date? boyfriend? sex-partner? lover? Christopher’s left hand comes up to wrap around Draco’s shoulders while his right plays with his own throbbing penis, and he makes gasping and moaning sounds in Draco’s mouth.

Minutes pass and Draco breaks away from the kiss, hunching over his thighs to focus on the spongy flesh between his legs. It will happen. It has to happen. After all he’s done today, the traded touches with Christopher, the strip show, Christopher’s interest in him, how can he not get hard?

“Hey, let me,” Christopher says, and moves his hand from his own cock to Draco’s.

But something’s welling up inside Draco and as the hand closes over his genitals he stands and walks away. A sob threatens to escape him so he slams a fist against the wall to hide the choking sound as it comes out. “Fuck!” he says so loudly he’s sure his father will hear downstairs, but he’s so angry he can’t bring himself to care. The night, the day really, is ruined in a few fumbling minutes of inadequacy.

“Adam! It’s ok.” Christopher has moved to stand behind him and now slinks his arms around Draco’s pale middle. He feels the warm chest against his back, but also the erection on his ass and shame sweeps over him, turning his face, his arms, even his chest a bright red. “We can—”

“There is no _we_ , Christopher!” he says suddenly, tearing himself out of the boys arms and turning to face him, wanting to hurt him, make him hate Draco. “Don’t you understand? I _used_ you. I thought I was finally being a good person, doing something for someone else, for a _muggle._ I thought if I could treat you like any other person…but I was just doing it to prove I could. And now I can’t even make you feel good. I turns out I’m just as bad a person as—”

“Shut up, Adam,” Christopher says sharply, and Draco is so taken aback he’s shocked right out of his self-pitying swirl. “So you can’t perform. I get it. Your mother has been kidnapped, you’ve been living in witness protection; it’s understandable. But we’re going to get her back.”

“It’s not that,” Draco says tearfully, gritting his teeth, but Christopher speaks harshly across him again.

“The hell it’s not. You thought being with me would make you a good person? Can you hear yourself? You’re talking like a dramatic teenager who thinks they’re a tragic war hero.”

Draco bows his head, unable to look Christopher in the face without revealing his tears so instead his eyes fall on his crotch. His proud erection has flagged now and drooped to curl up over his balls and Draco realizes he hasn’t actually seen the muggle soft before.

“You don’t get to decide what’s good for me,” Christopher goes on, a little more gently now. “Our sex hasn’t been crappy because of your limp dick, it’s been crappy because of your attitude. And now you’re suddenly acting like you feel bad, like you’re taking advantage of me. I’ve got news for you:” He lifts Draco’s head with a hand under his chin, forcing him to look into his eyes. “I’m not exactly doing this because I’m in love with you. Did you ever think I might be taking advantage of you? That I found an outlet for all the excitement I’ve been feeling about magic in the form of a hot, if snooty, wizard-ass?” Draco chokes back a giggle. “But no, that never occurred to you. Oh no, I’m a muggle, right? You have the power, you can wipe this all away once you’re done with me.” Christopher glares at him long and hard, but not with any sense of dislike. Finally, when the pause has gone on more than a minute, he lowers his hand and goes to sit on the bed.

After another minute, Draco joins him. “I am,” he says quietly. “I am a…a tragic war hero. Well, traitor actually,” he amends. Christopher looks like he’s not sure whether this is a joke or not, so he explains. It doesn’t take as long as Draco expected, what with all the names and spells and political intricacies he has to describe, and it’s not as painful as he expected. In fact, it’s something of a relief letting it out, putting it all in the hands of someone with no relevant experience at all. When he’s done outlining his role in the war, describing the hateful eyes of the Dark Lord, detailing Potter’s rise to the status of world-savior and his defense of the Malfoys at their trial, he lets out a sigh and falls back on the bed, weirdly aware of how naked he is.

Christopher whistles. “Well, that puts it in perspective I guess.” Draco looks up and sees that he looks embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I guess I really am just an ignorant muggle.”

“Forget it, Chris,” Draco whispers. “How would you have known?”

Christopher beams. “You called me by my name.”

“I always do,” Draco says gruffly. “I just don’t like nicknames. They’re not—” Fuck, he’s such an ass. “—dignified.”

“No, Christopher’s not my name.” Draco props himself up on his elbows, interested. “My parents named me Chris, that’s it. No bells, no whistles, just Chris.”

“And I never asked,” Draco murmurs.

“How would you have known?” Christopher — _Chris_ says in a dramatic, sing-song voice, rocking down toward Draco and up again. Then he lies back into the same position as Draco and asks in a more serious voice, “Adam, what’s your real name?”

A pause, but really if it’s not safe to tell him now it never will be. “Draco Malfoy.”

Chris looks at him a moment, and for a second Draco convinces himself he’s rolling the name lovingly over in his mind, but then he lets out a snort. “I’m sorry. Draco? Like the constellation?”

“Fuck you,” Draco says, shoving the muggle playfully away from himself.

“I’m _sorry!_ ” Chris says again, giggling madly. “It’s just such a ridiculous name! But I guess you have different naming conventions in the magic world.”

“I daresay we do,” Draco says miffily. Again, there’s a pause and through the silence Draco can hear the sounds of traffic and perhaps the faint hooting of an owl. They stare up at the blank ceiling and Draco imagines he can see the stars beyond it and suddenly he feels more naked than he has all night. “Chris?” he breathes.

The response takes a moment and Draco thinks briefly the boy’s gone to sleep, but, “Hm?”

“Did you mean it — would you have enjoyed the sex if I wasn’t so…bitchy?”

Chris laughs. “I did enjoy it. When we first… But then I was worried _you_ weren’t enjoying it and then, yeah you got a little bitchy.”

“I did enjoy it,” Draco says, his breath so shallow now he feels like he might pass out. Again, Chris doesn’t say anything for a minute and that minute feels like it will never end. It stretches on and on and Draco thinks of all the times he’s sat in horrified suspense — when he told Bellatrix he didn’t think his plan to kill Dumbledore would work, when Pansy threatened to tell the school about the picture of a nude Hercules wrestling a troll that he kept in his bedside table, when Potter took the stand at his family’s trial — but this time, as twisted as his insides are, he feels proud of himself for his vulnerability.

“Draco?”

“Yeah?” He turns his head, too quickly to be casual, but he’s beyond shame now.

“You want to have sex?”


	11. Chapter 11

It’s amazing, but acknowledging that they’re going to have sex even if he doesn’t get hard transforms Draco’s experience completely. He’s not a novice to sex, and he knows not all of the enjoyment comes from ejaculation or even the friction on the erect penis, but divorcing the experience from that entirely is new to him and liberating. Taking pleasure where he can, his nipples are suddenly ablaze with feeling, his waist freezes where Chris touches it, even his lips burn as they chart their own way along Chris’ body.

For a long time, they just mouth their way across each other, sometimes meeting to share a kiss, sometimes arranged toe to head, sometimes ending up so tangled that they fall apart, dissolving into laughter before their arousal takes over again. This time, Draco can finally appreciate what a good lover Chris is, not just in his skill with his tongue but in the time he puts into Draco’s body, even when he knows there’s no explosion at the end of it. Eventually, though, his movements become frantic and Draco decides it’s time to let him have the attention he deserves, so pulling him up to sit on the edge of the bed, Draco kneels between his legs and goes down on him, giving him the best and deepest he can. Chris lasts a minute longer and through it runs his fingers along Draco’s scalp, neck and shoulders. When he cums, he hunches over, curling his torso, thighs, and arms around Draco’s head as he empties himself into Draco’s mouth.

Draco spits the semen out without apology and looks up at a radiant face, panting and sweating and beautiful. They share another kiss, Chris seeming like he’s trying to scrape all the remaining cum from Draco’s mouth, and Draco can feel the boy softening against him. The feeling does nothing to diminish the fire still burning in him, and perhaps Chris can sense it because he invites him up on the bed beside him. As they both lie back, Draco lifts his head onto Chris’ chest to get a better view of the boy’s crotch. His penis retracts much farther than Draco’s when it’s soft, until barely more than the head is visible, but it feels somehow hotter, now that Chris is like him, flaccid but horny as ever. He is still horny, right? One look back up at his face confirms this and Draco throws a leg over Chris’ hips to grind their groins together.

He never imagined this would turn him on, rocking his pubic bone against another with only the vague danglings of penises and balls sticking out below. But fuck does it ever. It’s just getting to the point that he worries Chris might need some new stimulation, maybe even some more magic to keep him invested, when something inexplicable happens.

Changing position slightly, he props himself up on his hands to give his downward stroke more power, one hand on either side of Chris’ head, but when they come down, instead of meeting the rough duvet, he feels something soft and long. He looks and sticking out from under his hand is a long, brown and white striped feather. And there’s another one lying just a little farther off. And one on his other side. He looks back at Chris’ face and blinks as he sees an ecstasy there he hasn’t before, despite all the excitement and euphoria he’s seen cross those features. For a moment he is confused, because Chris isn’t looking at him but past him toward the ceiling, eyes alive in uncomprehending wonderment. Then he feels it — along his spine, his ass, his legs — the soft sensations of something brushing against him, many somethings. And he knows by their touch that it’s his magic; somehow his storms from childhood have melded with his current love affair and Chris’ fixation with fowl.

It’s raining feathers.

The effect is orgasmic. He is enclosed by gentle, feathered touches along his whole, naked body, and he presses instinctively into Chris, so hard it’s like he’s trying to fuse with him. Chris doesn’t seem to mind, because he’s grinding back, a deep, grunting, gasping moan coming from somewhere inside him.

Draco arches back and feels feathers slip down his spine and along his ass, between his butt cheeks, along his perineum, tickling blissfully along his balls. They trace his naked arms, his sides, the backs of his legs, the arches of his feet. Chris’ erection returns so forcefully, Draco is forced to lift off him for fear of damaging him and as he does his body gets an idea. He slips forward so the hard cock bounces up and nudges against his anus. Remembering Chris’ anxiety about muggle protection, he twists aroundto grab his wand and in two twirls feels his anal cavity pulse as cool lubricant coats its insides and hears Chris gasp as a condom appears smoothly on his dick. Slowly and gently, because it’s been so very long since he’s done this, he glides back and impales himself.

It’s slow and a little painful, but the charmed lubricant masks most of the pain and the dick is a modest size so it doesn’t stretch him past endurance. Chris seems like he wants to move so Draco presses his palms against the boy’s shoulders, holding him down. A feather catches his ass and must have caught Chris’ balls because the muggle jerks against him, sliding the last inch of his cock into Draco. Draco jolts, too, and hovers for a moment, breath shallow, as he adjusts to the feeling of flesh inside him. Chris beneath him, holds still patiently, but his chest is taught with the restraint, muscles bunched in hot, glorious relief. Then, when he’s ready, Draco throws himself back, sitting upright astride his lover, and letting the feather storm cascade down onto Chris’ chest.

Time loses meaning in the shower of down. Every inch of Draco’s body, inside and out, is activated with sensual touch. Chris bucks without restraint, holding Draco’s hips down with tight, clenching knuckles. Draco’s genitals bounce bizarrely off of Chris’ heaving abdomen, hard enough that his balls begin to ache at the force of it, but he doesn’t slow; he wouldn’t slow for anything.

At some point, Chris cums. At some point his dick comes sliding out of Draco. At some point Draco rolls off him. At some point he hits the layer of accumulated feathers. At some point he feels a slick hand run down his abdomen and over his crotch. He feels fingers probing and arches back into the feathers as the fingers press up on either side of his dick, rolling the skin back, entering him in a way he didn’t know was possible. He feels a tongue cradling his limp penis. He feels lips on his scrotum and then the crease where his hip joins his leg and then his belly button, his sternum, his collarbone, his adam’s apple, and then Chris catches his lips in a kiss. They wrap themselves around each other and dissolve into the soft unreality of feathers around them.

◆◆◆

“What the fuck was that?”

Draco jerks awake, and puts a hand to his head as he feels the mild but not painful after-effects of the smoking warlocks he drank last night. Then he rolls onto his side and sees Chris staring at him.

“I’m assuming I didn’t dream all of that,” he says, bringing a lazy hand up to Draco’s thigh and stroking it up and down.

“I’m not convinced I didn’t,” Draco responds. Last night was so out of the realm of normal his brain is having trouble even remembering the details, but that isn’t what feels like a dream. No, what’s currently blowing his mind is the naked boy still in bed with him, caressing him like he’s his boyfriend, when Draco distinctly recalls telling him about his time as a Death Eater.

“Seriously, though,” Chris says, rolling onto his front. “Is that like a thing that happens? I’ve heard of tentacle porn but that was…something else.”

“No, that, uh, doesn’t usually happen. When I was a kid, you know, before I could control my magic, I used to make storms appear in my room.”

“Wow.” Chris’ face should not be lighting up at that. “Wizard tantrums.”

“So I guess it just surfaced again.” He looks around, noticing for the first time that all the feathers have disappeared. “In a really fucking weird way.”

“Hey, you don’t hear me complaining,” Chris says, and he rolls again so that his back is against Draco’s chest. He reaches around to pull one of Draco’s arms over himself. “I can honestly say it’s something I’ll never forget.”

Draco lifts the arm now wrapped around Chris’ waist and holds it up to the light, looking pensively at his inner forearm.

“I don’t think you’re going to be able to top that,” Chris continues. “Unless…do you have any other sex magic up your sleeve?”

Draco giggles, but then sits up, face serious, and slowly holds out his arm. “There’s something I want to show you.”

Chris sits up, too, still spooned by Draco, and takes the arm in his hands. “What is it?”

“Can you reach my wand?”

“Yeah, here.”

Draco takes a breath and then draws the tip of his wand along the skin, delicately as if pulling back a cobweb. As he does so, the faded image of a skull with a serpent tongue blooms into being on his pale skin.

“Sick,” Chris says, and twists to grin at him.

Fuck. He should have explained. He expected Chris to recoil, to have some sense that this was wrong. He shakes his head. “It’s called the Dark Mark.”

“Bit intense, isn’t it?”

“It’s the Dark Lord’s symbol. A brand that he gave to all his followers. A symbol they left wherever they killed.”

Now Chris pulls away. He turns so they’re seated across from one another, the ugly symbol between them. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.”

“No, I should have explained first. I just wanted to show you because, because it’s part of me.” He grins to make it less of a downer. “Now you’ve really seen me naked.”

Chris doesn’t smile back immediately. Holding Draco’s forearm with one hand, he gently traces the dark lines of the snake with his other until, reaching the skull, he looks up. “You mean you don’t have a tail or acne or anything?”

“No I don’t have a tail,” Draco laughs. “But everyone gets acne.”

Christopher raises an eyebrow. “So do you use that concealer spell on your face, too?”

“No, we just have better remedies than you. Flawless skin is one of the benefits of being a wizard, though of course, not everyone can afford or chooses to use the potions. Anyway,” he takes his arm back and begins reforming the charm over the tattoo. When he’s done he rubs away the prickling sensation and grimaces at Chris. “Always a weird feeling. Um, thanks for not freaking out about that.”

“Why would I freak out?”

Draco shrugs. “Well, I guess you wouldn’t, but any wizard would probably jump out of their skins if they found the Dark Mark on someone they slept with.” He bites his lip as Chris looks awkward.

“There’s something I want to say, too, Draco,” Chris says tentatively, and Draco knows it must be serious because there’s not even a flicker of a smirk when he says Draco’s name. He braces himself, though he’s not sure what the boy is aiming at. Maybe he has a nazi tattoo or something, though that would be odd as he seems like he might be mixed race. He’s pretty sure those are fairly incompatible but muggles are very confusing and it wouldn’t be the first time their culture surprised him.

But then a muted voice comes sailing though the closed window, “Adam! Chris! Breakfast!”

Chris makes a face. “It’ll keep till after. Let’s do this.”


	12. Chapter 12

Over at the kitchen table, Muriel slaps down a Daily Prophet on the table before filling their mugs with tea. ‘CELEBRATED HOGWARTS PAINTING STOLEN: MINISTRY INVESTIGATING’ blares from the head of the page, followed by an old and grimy photo of the Fat Lady’s portrait in black and white. Chris lifts it to admire.

“Quite meta, isn’t it?”

“Meta?” Draco and Muriel ask together.

Chris turns to look at them. “Meta. Like metaphysical? A picture in a picture?”

Muriel shrugs at Draco and winks at Chris before disappearing to give the owl his breakfast. “This means it’s only a matter of time before they come calling for me,” she says loudly so they’ll still hear her.

“But we were birds!” Chris says dismissively, still ogling the photo. “How could they trace it back to us?”

Okay, Draco’s not saying this because he’s a muggle, but Chris isn’t exactly the brightest. “The muggle studies professor introduced Muriel to the Fat Lady. She’ll be top of the list of suspects, and if they look into her family tree and see they’re related, she might as well start packing for Azkaban right now. The wizard prison,” he adds quickly.

“They wouldn’t really send us to prison!” Chris gasps.

“You know, I’m not sure what they do with muggles who break wizarding law. Muriel?” He raises his voice. “Do you know what they do with muggles who break wizarding law? Just modify their memory as usual?”

“I don’t think I know any muggles who’ve managed to do that, now you mention it,” Muriel says coming back into the room. “But I doubt they’d charge either of you. After all I did sort of blackmail you into it, and there’s no reason to take you two down, too, if they do catch up with me.”

“Muriel, it would be an honor to share a cell with you,” Chris says, and Draco’s seized by a strange desire to both kiss him passionately and give him a good smack.

“All I’m saying,” Muriel says, smiling, “is you have a time limit on how long I can stay in the country, so let’s make sure we get your mother back today before there are any more complications.”

“No, I thought we should wait another week or so,” Draco says sarcastically, then blushes as he registers his scathing tone. “Sorry.”

“Where are you going, then, once this is all over?” Chris asks, speaking airily as if to gloss over Draco’s rudeness. Draco shoots him a grateful look and when Muriel turns to summon the kettle, Chris blows him an affected kiss in return.

“New Zealand. I told you, plenty of my family is abroad where the muggle-squib-magical communities are more mixed. I was planning on retiring there anyway, but now I’ve got an excuse to go early. Now, have you eaten enough? More toast? No? Then let’s be off.”

A loud crack sounds through the kitchen and for a second Draco thinks Muriel left without them, but then he looks up and sees the short figure of Susan Bones between them and his face pales. Luckily, she is facing Muriel and has her back to the boys. Without hesitation, Draco seizes Chris’ shoulder and forces him under the table as Bones turns around to include him in her welcome.

“Everything alright, Malfoy?” she asks, regarding his flushed face and forced calmness with suspicion.

“Just excited to see you is all,” he says in a perfect imitation of his old sneer.

She glares but seems more at ease. “Well, I’ll come straight out with it: we haven’t got her back yet, but we are closing in on a suspect. How they came to know your whereabouts is still a mystery, but they have appropriate history and knowledge of departmental protocol when it comes to defensive wards, so it is likely we’ll make the arrest within the next few days if not sooner.” She softens her stance slightly and looks directly at Draco as she goes on. “I’m sorry it’s not more concrete news, but this is a good lead and I’m confident it will play out well, and Harry is sure no harm has yet come to your mother. It’ll be over soon, Malfoy.”

“I—” It would be so much easier to play this cool if Chris’ shoulder wasn’t pressing both Draco’s knees into the wooden bench so that he forced to do a half twist to face Bones normally. “Harry…” he mumbles, and she frowns.

“You could do with showing him a bit more respect. He saved the world from Voldemort, he saved your family from Azkaban, and now he’s trying to save your mother. I heard you were reformed, but you still can’t give him a break, can you?”

“Yes, the golden boy can do no wrong.”

“Harry Potter has done a great deal for this country, Adam,” Muriel says reproachfully.

“Oh you can call him Draco, now, there’s no one else here,” Bones says, the spite in her voice clearly aimed at him. “Harry will save you every time, whether you thank him for it or not.”

Draco takes a deep, steadying breath through flared nostrils and tries to compose himself. “He’s not the only one saving me,” he says at last, and when Bones looks confused he widens his eyes at her pointedly. “He may have saved the world, but Granger had a lot more to do with that than he did, I’ll wager. And now…” he trails off and says delicately, “Thank you, Bones.”

She’s looking at him as if seeing him suddenly in a whole new light, which she probably is. Seemingly unable to make up her mind on how to respond, she nods professionally and then turns back to Muriel. “I also wanted to express my and the department’s gratitude to you. Since we’re so close, would it be possible—”

Muriel holds up a hand. “Say no more, love. It’s a delight to have them.”

“Well, in that case, please pass along what I’ve said to your father, Malfoy, and I’ll check back in shortly.” She strides into the hall before disapparating.

“Oh, Chris, dear,” Muriel says, hurrying over to help him extricate himself, his hair and shirt in complete disarray. “Are you—”

“I’m fine, really,” he says, dusting himself off. “That Harry Potter you were talking about — he was the agent we met, wasn’t he?”

“Did you, now?” Muriel says, helping him back into his chair. “He is the one in charge of the case, isn’t he?”

“He is, and yes, he was,” Draco says shortly.

Tentatively, Muriel sits down as well. “I know you knew him at school when you were still…” She shoots a look at Chris, but Draco nods at her to go on.

“He knows.”

“Well, I know it can’t have been easy being on the wrong side of him, but you can’t really deny the good he’s done, can you?”

Draco sighs and props his head on his arms. “No, no I can’t. Dumbledore, Granger, the rest of them — I know I was a terrible person and they were — are — so much better, but Potter…”

“He was your nemesis?” Chris says quietly.

Draco nods and suddenly, with both sets of compassionate, non-judgmental eyes on him, he feels a flush creeping up his face and tears pricking at his own eyes. He burrows down into his arms crossed on the table and Chris runs a gentle hand along the back of his neck and up into his hair. This only makes him blush further and he can hear Muriel humming contentedly to herself as she sets about doing the dishes.

“Come on,” Chris whispers in his ear. “We’ve got to get going.”

So he sits up and excuses himself to clean himself up in the bathroom.


	13. Chapter 13

A fence of ornate Hufflepuff iron, presumably installed by the Longleys when they gained control of the estate, stands tall and imposing along the roadside, but the gate itself has been replaced with a silver grille whose bars twirl in a clear stylistic imitation of serpents. While the new gate looks considerably flimsier than the iron fencing, it no doubt still has flagrate charms on it and sure enough when Draco draws close enough to hold out a hand to it, he can feel heat radiating off it.

“Burning charm,” he says to Chris, and pulls the muggle’s hand out so he can feel it, too. Not the worst thing they could have to deal with but still unfortunate. “Birds again, then? And we can do Muriel one we’re on the other side.” For some reason, probably because Chris is hanging nervously on his every word, he’s uncomfortably aware of the way his voice slides droning out of his mouth; it’s not a sneer but there’s still a drawling flatness to it that…worries him?

“You still think it’s best going up the front drive?” Chris says anxiously, peering past the flowering bushes toward the main entrance to the house.

He nods, and lifts his head slightly, opening his throat and trying to give his voice a bit more lightness. “No point in going round the back, they’re bound to have sensory spells all through the grounds. No, the front’s the quickest way in and if we can catch them while they’re surprised, that’s best.”

“You’re the boss. Definitely birds, then?”

Draco looks at Muriel and she jerks a thumb at the hedge opposite the gate. “We’ll have to wait for the sheep to pass before we do anything.”

“What…?” Turning, he sees a flock coming up the narrow lane and curses as Muriel and Chris begin trying to force their way through the hedge. He follows and they come out on the edge of an empty field.

As they crouch, waiting, Chris turns to Draco with a puzzled look on his face. “I know the Greengrass connection makes sense, but the agent who came said they’re arresting someone in the department. Wouldn’t they know if there was a Greengrass in the department?”

“It could be someone who used to work in the department,” Draco replies in a lower voice as the shepherd walks past. “But you’re right, it’s odd they didn’t make the connection.”

Chris looks at him with concern in his round eyes. “Are we doing the right thing?”

“Of course we are!”

“Alright,” Chris says, face clearing. “But who are they going after, then, if not a Greengrass? Who would have that kind of motive?”

“There’re plenty of people in that office who hate me, from both sides: Potter, Bones, that Hufflepuff MacMillan, the Weasleys, my ex-girlfriend…”

“Girlfriend?” Chris says, his eyebrows raised.

Draco looks over at Muriel, but she’s crept along the hedge away from them to try to find a better way back through. “Yeah. Pansy Parkinson. She was never a Death Eater, but she was definitely in that crowd, at least, when we were together. If she were the one, that would probably be why she was after me.”

“Does that mean you play both sides of the aisle, then?”

“What? Oh, right. You muggles like your sex in tidy boxes, don’t you? I forgot.” Chris looks completely bewildered, so Draco explains. “I don’t deny we’ve had problems with sexuality, but mostly we don’t care who you sleep with. Unless they’re a muggle. Some people have a problem with that.”

“Even after the war?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Oh. Oh!” Chris’s face lights up. “So what we’re doing — did — it’s kind of like your version of queer?”

“I suppose you could put it that way…” Draco says unwillingly. And then he says with sudden worry, “That doesn’t bother you, does it? That I’ve had a girlfriend?”

“Oh no,” Chris says hastily. “I didn’t mean…I just haven’t met many bisexual guys. But then again, I haven’t met many wizards either. At least,” his face is pensive again, “not that I know of.”

“Come on,” Draco says, seeing Muriel slipping back through the hedge. Arranged again before the gate, they gaze up at the brick barely visible between the bushes and trees artfully arranged along the twisting drive. He bites his lip. “Is there another way we could do this?” he asks Muriel and Chris’ face falls. “I don’t know if birds is such a good idea. If we have to wait for you to transform us and then us to transform you and then back again, that’s valuable time lost when we’re relying on surprise.”

Muriel grimaces. “I was thinking that, too, but I haven’t got any brooms and they’re not exactly ten a knut.”

“Brooms, as in flying brooms? That’s a thing?” Chris says, beaming. Then, “Sorry, go on.”

“I suppose levitating would take even longer than bird transformations; it’s so clunky,” Draco says, musingly.

Chris steps forward to examine the gate more closely. “I don’t suppose we could just drive in?”

“Hm. Yes, I do remember Weasley using a flying car to get to Hogwarts once, but,” Draco glances a Muriel, “without any knowledge of the systems it would be very difficult to enchant.”

“No, I just meant, like, normal. Just drive through. Unless you think the gate’s too magically strong or whatever.” Muriel smiles broadly and Draco looks at Chris, stunned. “We could even smash down the door that way — you can repair any damage after with magic, right? Not that these people deserve it.”

“Draco, love, kiss this boy for me,” Muriel says, positively glowing with motherly pride.

Draco clears his throat awkwardly and says, “Yes, that’s perfect. Do you have a car in mind?”

When they’re buckled into Chris’ tiny but solid Toyota, after Muriel and Draco covered every inch of the interior with cushioning charms, Draco turns in his seat to face them both. “Okay, remember, as soon as this is over — Muriel, you get Chris back to yours. If the ministry gets wind of something going on, they’ll be all over the Greengrass place. When they come calling, you get Chris out of the way and say I’m supposed to be in the attic. Got it?” They both nod determinedly and he gives Chris a tap. “Alright, get this monstrosity rolling then.”

Within two minutes the gate is once again in sight and the three of them brace themselves for the impact. A screech of metal, a jangling patter as the silver remnants bounce away, and they are through, roaring up the winding, brick-patterned drive. Chris spins the car sharply around the final bend and with a car-wrenching crash they come to a stop, lodged in the space where the front door stood moments before. Grumbling, the car wedges itself out of the wreckage and Chris parks it in the middle of the cul-de-sac.

“Never again,” Draco gasps as he stumbles out the passenger door.

“Nice driving,” Muriel says, patting a trembling Chris on the back.

“Let’s go!” Draco shouts at them, and without waiting for a response, he bounds through the hole in the side of the house, wand held out, already glowing against the darkness of the interior. The portraits covering the walls of the hall all have the same comical look of surprised horror on their faces as they stare wordlessly at the three intruders emerging from the dust clouds still spreading from the entryway. Chris looks around, seemingly unable to help himself, but Draco ignores them, bursting into room after room: the sitting room, the parlor, out onto the veranda, the conservatory, the dining room. In the kitchen he encounters the first sign of movement, but Muriel, keeping pace with him, seizes his arm before he curses the terrified house elf crouching behind the waste bin.

“Draco, listen,” Muriel says, forcing him to be still. Then she points to the ceiling. The faint sounds of someone talking are drifting through the plaster, though not clear enough to make out the words.

“You take the back stairs,” he mouths to Muriel, pointing to the servants’ staircase by the kitchen’s other door. She nods and he moves back out into the hall and towards the main stairs. The emerald carpeting muffles his footsteps, though that really shouldn’t be important seeing as they just drove a car into the house. Perhaps they’ve sound-proofed the room they’re in? He sees Chris peering through a cupboard of spelled cloaks on the landing and brushes past him impatiently. Probably best he’s occupying himself out of the way.

The second floor is dim, the curtains on the windows half-drawn against the late-morning sunshine, but he can hear a fire crackling in the second room on his left. Why someone would want a fire in this heat, he can’t imagine; they’d already determined the house wasn’t connected to the flue network. He reaches the open door and pauses, his breath shallow and wet in his throat. Muriel still hasn’t appeared, but they’ve already wasted enough time blundering around. Draco tightens his grip on his wand and flings himself into the room.

The first thing he registers is that the fire is not in the hearth, but in the windows. Each pane of glass is covered by a gently licking sheet of flame and as his eyes flit over them he feels a rush of heat at his back, which can only mean the doorway has just sealed behind him. The second thing he registers is a faint chime, which he recognizes as the triggering of a sensory charm — the standard, ministry kind Potter had used on the place Draco’s family had been staying, though of course they hadn’t worked when the Greengrasses had come calling.

He stays calm, but he can feel the panic rising as thoughts of ‘ _Idiot. Of course it’s a trap. She’s dead now_.’ fly through his mind. There are any number of things that might get him out of this, and panicking won’t help, so he begins to try spell after spell, growing increasingly frustrated as the heat rises and sweat begins running into his eyes. He tries aquamenti, alohomora, evanesco. He tries more banishing charms, a wind charm, even a tricky anti-curse his mother once taught him, but nothing has any effect. He might once have been a death eater, but these were ministry-grade spells, and once he had things like the unforgivables under his belt, there wasn’t much more that seemed necessary. The spells he learned repairing the vanishing cabinet in that fateful year at Hogwarts had all been interdependent object-based spells that were good for nothing unless you wanted to repair a vanishing cabinet. Losing his head, he fires reducto spells at the wall, but the gap that appears instantly fills itself with yet more flames.

“Muriel!” he shouts, leaning as close to the doorway as the heat will permit. He wonders desperately if he wrapped himself in the rug it might protect him if he ran through, but he thinks he’d rather take his chances with whoever shows up. Burning to death seems much worse than a simple avada kedavra. Then, as he sinks to the floor, he hears a shout from outside.

“What the fuck have they done to the place?”

It’s a younger voice — his age maybe — so one of the sisters. What were their names? Daphne and Astoria? Then he jumps as he hears the same voice from behind him.

“She was right. You really are an idiot.” The girl in the portrait over the mantelpiece is grinning at him — leering, really. She’s younger than she would be now, but he recognizes her as Daphne. This must be her bedroom, when the family stays here that is, and she must be who he and Muriel heard talking from downstairs. A neat trap, for who better to trust with your plan than yourself? He hears clattering from downstairs as Daphne clears the hall of rubble, and then the creak of floorboards as she makes her way upstairs. But who is with her? Because he can definitely hear another pair of feet. Her sister? A parent?

“Stupefy!”

He has no warning; the spell shoots out from the opaque wall of fire and hits him hard in the stomach. If he makes it out of this, he’ll definitely be feeling that tomorrow.

“Find the woman,” Daphne’s voice comes again as the flames drop. “The watch-witch or whoever you said. I’ll keep him here for you.”

Now that’s an interesting choice of words. As Daphne looks coldly into his face, he struggles to remember what he knows about her. The trouble was, she was one of those girls that, despite the purity of her blood and the wealth of her family, was one of those nerdy nobodies who spent more time in the library than the common room. She’d gotten along fairly well with the other Slytherin girls, but —

With two flourishes of her wand, Draco is suddenly flat on the floor with his hands and feet bound, his wand rolling away into a corner behind him. At least he can move now, he thinks, struggling to sit up and brace himself against the bed.

“So,” he says, panting from the effort. “Your parents put you up to this? Promise you a little extra pocket money?”

Daphne snorts derisively. “My parents? If my parents knew about this there’d be hell to pay. They’re not about to risk their necks with Shacklebolt in charge.”

“I,” Draco struggles to process this new information. “I didn’t take you for the avenging kind. Knott, maybe, but you?”

“You really are an idiot, aren’t you?” she says, and Draco sees her portrait giggling in the corner of his eye. “Shacklebolt, Voldemort. I don’t give a damn about wars and men playing their stupid power games. I’m a Slytherin. Friends first.”

“Friends?” Draco repeats, and then Pansy Parkinson appears beside Daphne in the doorway.

“Hello, Draco,” she says sweetly. “How nice of you to stop by.”


	14. Chapter 14

Draco wants to say something witty and dignified like ‘Ah, Pansy. Charmed,’ or ‘Isn’t this just like old times, me in handcuffs, you with the wand,’ but he’s having trouble unsticking his throat.

“Snake got your tongue?” she sneers at him, face full of gloating malice. “I never thought I’d live to see Draco Malfoy at a loss for words.”

Daphne rolls her eyes and stalks out of the room. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”

“Wh—” He clears his throat. “Where’s—”

“Your back up?” Pansy laughs, the same girlish shriek Draco remembers so well. “Come on in, love.”

Muriel, hands bound like Draco’s, shuffles into the room looking ashamed. When their eyes meet she gives him a grimace. “I’m so sorry, Draco.”

“Don’t apologize to him!” Pansy says sharply. “He roped you into this, didn’t he? What’d he promise you? Gold?”

Muriel plunks down hard next to Draco and stares defiantly up at Pansy. “He didn’t rope me into anything. I volunteered. It’s my job as a watch-witch, after all, to keep the city safe.”

“Still,” Draco half-whispers at her. “It’s not your fault.”

“But I should have seen this coming!” Muriel hisses back. “Two of them? It’s so obvious now.”

Draco nods. “That’s why the ministry didn’t see the connection.”

“And it’s my job to report this kind of thing.” Muriel groans and buries her face in her bound hands. “If I had, they would have figured it out straight away and you’d be back with your family—”

“Under house arrest,” Draco reminds her.

“—and I’d be on a beach in New—”

“Are you finished?” Pansy says angrily. She’s been standing over them, arms crossed while they whispered to each other, but now she bends down and stares aggressively into their faces. “Of course you didn’t figure it out, and of course the ministry didn’t figure it out. I am damn good at my job, and I’ve played the part of the sorrowful Slytherin ever since the battle. And I wasn’t even a Death Eater, like this one!” And she jabs her wand hard into Draco’s chest, singeing the material of his shirt. “And Daphne, who on earth would suspect sweet, innocent Daphne? You couldn’t believe it even when she was standing over you with a wand!” And she jabs him again, this time burning right through to the skin.

“So what’s changed?” Muriel asks in a soothing tone. Draco thinks she’s probably more interested in calming Pansy down than in hearing the answer.

“Changed? Nothing’s changed!” A little spit drips from her lip to the floor and she wipes her mouth with the back of a hand. “Draco was just a little easier to reach when my department placed him in some nowhere muggle town. Daphne couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw him, couldn’t even wait to send me an owl. Had to floo to me directly.” She smiles at the memory of it, but it isn’t the smile he remembers. It isn’t even the smile she wore when taunting Gryffindors. There is something broken under it, something he recognizes. It’s the smile of someone who has been living a lie and is about to snap from the strain of it. Or has already snapped, perhaps. “I knew this was probably my only chance and so we went for it, we went hard. I studied every defensive spell in my department’s manual till I knew it back to front.”

“Yes,” Draco says and it comes out as a drawl. Well, if he’s going to use a defensive mechanism, he supposes he’s glad it’s nothing worse than arrogant sarcasm. “And then I suppose you practiced disillusionment charms.”

“No. Daphne’s family happens to have a decent supply of invisibility cloaks and I figured we might as well go all out.” Then her face goes sour. “But you slipped away. Over that wall before your family was out of their chairs. But I suppose I don’t blame you. Your parents aren’t exactly model citizens, are they?”

Draco’s face is burning now, his skinny forearms clenched against the restricting band around them as Pansy begins to pace in front of them.

“Couldn’t make up their minds, could they? Just like you. You went into the castle to capture Potter, and you came out a Potter-lover.” She lets out a kind of cackle of mirthless laughter. “I still can’t wrap my head around it. Did he fuck you while you were in there? Did you magically turn into a Gryffindor?”

“No, you fucked me,” he says quietly.

“And do you know how dirty I felt when I realized what you’d become? When I saw you and your father groveling in front of Shacklebolt and the rest? And you,” She apparently couldn’t look at Draco anymore, so addressed Muriel instead. “What’s your story? Potter defending him I get — Potter’s a self-important ass who has to look like the savior of all wizard-kind — but what’re you in it for? Seriously,” she says, conjuring a chair and a bottle of firewhiskey and sitting down in front of her. “I don’t get why the whole world doesn’t hate him. He has betrayed literally everyone.”

Muriel shrugs. “People make mistakes.”

Pansy lets out a high-pitched, maniacal peal of laughter. “ ‘People make mistakes.’ Oh!”

“I’m not saying he should get away with it. Potter’s let him off a bit lightly if you ask me, but I’m no saint. If the ministry knew all that I’ve done, I’d have a hefty fine to pay, maybe even jail time.”

“So nobody’s perfect? That’s your argument?” Pansy snorts. “Love, you can sing your kumbayas till you drop, but that’s not going to protect you from the next dark wizard that comes rising.”

“Well, what’s your problem with him?” Muriel shoots at her. “That he’s a traitor to Voldemort? Lord, most of the country was against Voldemort. It sounds to me like you’re just picking a fight with your ex to take out a bit of your disappointment.”

“It’s not—” Pansy is suddenly on her feet again, the chair toppling backwards to the floor. Her hair literally crackles with electricity and her face is purple with rage. “How—He’s a _traitor_. There is a difference between being scum and being a spineless turncoat. And he—he,” She actually turns around, away from them, taking deep, steadying breaths before facing them again. “He was the youngest Death Eater since the first fall! He was in the Dark Lord’s inner circle. The Dark Lord lived _in his fucking house_. And he BLEW IT! He had months — _months_ — and when he finally came up with a plan — which, by the way involved letting everyone else do the fighting — when he finally had Dumbledore at his mercy, he couldn’t do it. The guy was _wandless_. A _frail, old_ man. _Alone_.” Steam is now rising from Pansy’s hair, fogging the windows, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She’s begun pacing again by now, though occasionally she’ll stop and glower at him to make a point.

“Is that what this is about?” Muriel asks softly. “You think he was weak?”  
  
“ _Weak?_ He had _everything!_ ”

“And you’re wondering why Voldemort didn’t give the job to someone better? Someone like you?” Muriel says, almost kindly.

“I could have done it in _days_ — I would have done it in the first week of term. I’d have killed Potter, too, if he’d asked me. Why, Draco? That’s what I want to know.” She’s stopped pacing now and is standing, arms folded, glaring down at him.

He doesn’t believe in Voldemort anymore, or the pureblood crap he was raised on, but he can remember what it felt like and instead of feeling angry or scared, he feels rather sorry for his old girlfriend, standing there furious and vulnerable. “I get it, believe me,” he says after a minute’s pause. “I was an ass about it, and loved lording it over the rest of you. But then I realized why he chose me, and it wasn’t because I was special or devoted. It was because I was expendable, just like my mother kept telling me. He needed a way to punish my father and he didn’t need me, so I was given the job of planning my own death. It was sheer luck I didn’t end up dying, though Dumbledore probably would have found a way of saving me if he could have. After that night, I changed. I started to see the cruelty in what we were doing, but I changed too slowly and I was too scared not to keep going. When he died, when Potter killed him, I was free. Potter’s a prick, I know, but he was on the right side and the world is better for that.”

“Merlin, Draco. I had no idea they fucked up your brain that badly. I guess the Malfoys always follow the public sympathy.” She righted the chair and sat back down again, taking a long swig of the firewhiskey.

“Fuck you, Pansy,” he counters, angrily, wiping a tear from one eye. “You try and kill me, you kidnap my family and here I am baring my soul to you.”

“Coulda tried that when we were going out,” she sneers. “You might’ve gotten lucky a bit more often.”

“I am acknowledging that I was an ass back then,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Good for you, Draco,” says Muriel, which makes the whole situation even more bizarre. The confused and weirded-out emotions in him have gone beyond definable language into brain-freezing bewilderment.

“Anyway,” he says, both wanting the conversation to end and dreading whatever comes next. “What exactly was your plan? Kidnap me and my parents, torture us for a bit and then kill us? You know the ministry is on to you.”

“Actually, Draco, the plan was to let you go.” He raises his eyebrows skeptically. “No, seriously. We were invisible so you’d never know who broke in, and as there would be no lasting damage, and as most people in the department loathe you, the investigation would have been minimal at best.”

“So…you were just going to rough us up a bit?” Draco says, as a cautious optimism begins to steal over him.

“Yeah, turn you into some messed up stuff, maybe make you drink some veritaserum and have you say what you really felt about each other.” Then she leans forward on her knees, and her eyebrows contract again. “But then you fucked it up. So really, this is all your fault.”  
  
“What is?” Yeah, so much for the cautious optimism.

“Well, we can’t let you go now. We’ll just have to move to the states and your father will just have to live with the knowledge that his wife and son are probably dead. Which, you will be.”

Draco’s stomach clenched horribly. “Is she—did you—”

“You’re mother’s fine; she’s in a box under the bed,” Pansy says in a bored voice.

Draco whirls around and lands half on Muriel’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he mutters and struggles to fit his hands under the bed and around the cardboard box they find there. By stretching his hands as far as they will go, he manages to wrap his fingertips around its corners and draw it out, almost laughing aloud with relief as he hears a fluttering from within. “Mother,” he breathes, and flips the top off. The bird jumps to his shoulder and nuzzles his cheek affectionately. Well, as much as a bird can nuzzle anything. It ended up being more of a stabbing motion, but he got the message. Now there was just the issue of him being bound and wandless and her being a bird…

“Uh, Pansy?” Daphne’s voice floats through the door.

“What is it?” Pansy snaps and then jumps to her feet.

Daphne is walking slowly into the room, her hands raised, a knife aimed at her side. The knife is held by a hand but that hand isn’t connected to anything — it’s just suspended in the air, and Draco understands. “Looks like someone found your stash of invisibility cloaks,” he says, grinning.

“Shut the fuck up, Draco,” Pansy says, her wand switching from the empty air around Daphne to Draco’s head. “Mr. Malfoy or whoever you are, drop the knife or I’ll end him.”

_Please don’t say anything_ , Draco thinks to himself, wishing Chris to play it cool. If Pansy thinks she’s dealing with Lucius Malfoy, she’s going to be careful. If she realizes it’s a muggle—

“Drop the wand, or I’ll stab her,” Chris says.

Pansy straightens. “Who are you?”

“Drop the wand!” Chris says again, more forcefully.

Draco doesn’t like the way Pansy is looking at the knife. She’s a smart woman, he knows from experience.

“Daphne, where’s your wand?” she asks.

“Downstairs,” Daphne half-mouths, then shrugs as if to say ‘I don’t get it either.’

“Ah.” Pansy doesn’t move for a moment, then she flicks her wand almost imperceptibly. The knife is ripped from Chris’ hand and soars into her empty one. Daphne instantly thrusts back with an elbow and turns to bring Chris’ face down to her knee. He reels back and crashes into the door frame, collapsing to the floor. “A _muggle_?” Pansy laughs, incredulous. “You brought a muggle along for the ride, Draco?” and she walks over and tugs the cloak off Chris who rolls away, holding his broken nose. Pansy looks from him to Draco and back again as if unable to believe her eyes. “I can’t even — what the fuck, Draco?”

“He’s just a muggle, Pansy,” Draco says tensely. “Let him out the back. He’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Nothing to do with this?” Pansy says dangerously. “Did he not just have a knife between my friend’s ribs?”

“Did you not just have a wand at my head? Come on, Pansy.”

“No, Draco. This shit ends now.” She raises her wand.

“Actually, Pansy…” A man peels away from the wall — literally peels out from flat nothing to a three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood human. Potter has his wand casually aimed at Pansy’s heart, as if they’re in the office doing dueling practice.

“Fuck,” Draco and Pansy mutter in unison.


	15. Chapter 15

“Do I get credit for finding them?” Pansy says in a wildly transparent attempt to play innocent.

“Just drop the wand, Pansy,” Potter says in a tired voice. Draco notices Bones quietly peel out from the wall on the other side of Pansy and silently stun Daphne where she’s still standing gaping at Potter.

Pansy glances behind her, sees Bones and seems to wrestle with the odds for a moment before recognizing defeat and allowing her wand and the knife to fall to the floor. They don’t even reach the floorboards before they’re swept away by Bones’ summoning charm. “Can we at least do without the full—” she begins, but Potter’s curse cuts her off and her arms and legs snap together, toppling her over backwards, rigid as a board.

“Took you long enough!” Draco says scathingly to Potter as he comes over to undo their bonds.

“Draco, be nice to the man. He just saved us after all,” Muriel says reproachfully, beaming soppily up at Potter.

“I’m used to it,” Potter says in the noble tone of a war hero. “Bones, I’ll just take these two back. You want to start processing this? I’ll only be a moment.”

Bones nods and Potter disapparates with the immobile Daphne and Pansy.

“Are you, like, new to the department or something?” Draco says in exasperation.

“What?”

“What are you doing all his legwork for? I know he hasn’t got an assistant cause he’s whined about it every time he came round our safe-house. So what is it? Are you sweet on him? Just in awe of the famous Harry Potter?”

“Draco,” Muriel says, reproachful again, but then to Bones: “He’s not wrong, you know.”

Bones sighs. “Yes, alright, I’m a bit starstruck working this case with him. But he gets all the good cases and, I dunno, I’m just happy to be here, helping. Still, I should try to stick up for myself more.”

“Of course he gets all the good cases,” Draco mutters to himself. “I don’t mean to make it sound like it’s your fault.”

“Oh I know,” Bones says, waving a hand. “He is a good person, you know. It’s not his fault either — well, not entirely.”

Draco rolls his eyes.

“So, uh, is that your mother?” she asks, pointing at the goldfinch now flapping around the ceiling.

“Oh merlin, yes!” Draco gives a start and reaches out so the bird can land in his cupped palms. Muriel goes over to help a groaning Chris to his feet and begins examining his nose while Bones examines Narcissa Malfoy.

“This should do the trick,” she says, and circles her wand tip above the bird’s head. “Our medi-wizard came up with a counter-curse after analyzing the initial spell. It should—ah, yes.”

Draco drops her fast because she’s suddenly a full nine stone and growing like snakevine. Within seconds, his full-sized, tear-stained mother is holding him tightly in her arms and before long he’s similarly tear-stained.

“Draco, merlin, I can’t tell you how glad I am you’re alright,” she whispers into his shoulder.

“I know, mother,” he says, stroking her back.

“I know this is a tough moment,” Bones says awkwardly, “but I do need a statement. And, uh, someone’s got to explain this.”

Draco looks up and sees her pointing at Chris. “Ah, fuck,” he groans. “Listen, mother, give me two seconds.” She nods weakly and sits down on the bed, wiping her eyes. To Bones, he says: “Bones — Susan — thank you. If you hadn’t—”

Bones rolls her eyes. “It’s our job, Malfoy. Did you really not trust us to find her? Now about the muggle…”

“He—” Draco looks across at Chris, who’s feeling his magically mended nose in disbelief as Muriel laughs. He thinks of how Chris’ eyes light up at even the most pointless magical things and he wonders if they did that before, when he didn’t know, and if they’ll do that again after they wipe his memory. “He wanted to help. He’s…” Draco doesn’t know what to say; he’s amazing? he’s a good person? And Bones is looking at him in that way detectives do when they’re reading your mind. It occurs to Draco that she might actually be reading his mind; he has no idea if she’s a legilimens or not.

“He’s what, Malfoy? Just a muggle, right? I don’t think he was even here.”

“Wha—really?” he says, almost jumping with excitement.

“But you’d better get him out of here. Potter’s a stickler for the rules.”

“I — yes! Bones—” He almost hugs her but her smile says she understands. “Muriel!” Draco calls and waves his hand at Chris.

“Right!” She calls back and disapparates with him.

When he turns back to Bones she hands him his wand, holding it in that same reverent way she had last time. “Um, are you fondling my wand?”

Bones blushes, but doesn’t seem ashamed. “Of course. This is the wand that defeated Voldemort, dung brains,” she says, and she’s almost laughing, but something stops her and she looks up at him intently with something like concern or pity? “You had your part to play in Voldemort’s downfall, too, Draco.” A crack makes them look around; Potter has reappeared next to his motherwho has fallen backwards onto the bed in alarm. “And from the way Harry tells it, so did your mother.” With that, Bones crosses to Potter and says, boldly, “I’m going to take Mrs. Malfoy back and get her a cup of tea. You’ll handle Draco and cleanup?”

Potter nods, looking a little surprised as Bones and Draco’s mother vanish, leaving him alone with Draco.

“So,” Draco says conversationally. “How much did you hear before you came out of the wall?”

“What, when I saved you?” Potter half-grins. “Nothing. The anti-apparition charm was only half-broken so the wall was just our anchor. Why, were you talking about me?”

“I called you a prick. I thought you should know.”

There’s a scream from downstairs. Potter curses. “That’ll be the Greengrasses. The _other_ Greengrasses,” he adds hastily as Draco looks alarmed. “They’re lovely people, well, lovely by aristocratic, prejudiced scum standards.”

“Thanks,” Draco says dryly. “You mind if I don’t stay around to chat?”

“Draco, you’ve _got_ to go into the ministry,” Potter says warningly. “You can’t go running off again.”

“You can trust me, on my honor as a Malfoy,” Draco drawls.

Potter just looks at him.

“I _promise_. Merlin,” Draco rolls his eyes as footsteps scurry up the stairs.

“Fine. I’ll see you soon,” Potter says, turning to the door.

Draco has one glimpse of a tall, balding man, an equally tall and balding woman, and a pretty woman who must be Daphne’s sister before he’s pulled into compressing darkness.

◆◆◆

They’re all back at Muriel’s, cleaning up after a celebratory feast she prepared in honor of Draco’s mother being safely back among them. His father is actually waltzing as he directs dishes and silverware through the air. Grinning and a little embarrassed, Draco steps out into the tiny garden for a break from the clamor. It’s not much of a garden — a few flutterby bushes, some daisies, and a stump that looks worryingly like a snargaluff. Still, it’s a garden and he stretches out his arms, welcoming the fresh air and sunshine as the sounds of Muriel’s record player continue to beat on inside. It’s a moment before he notices the sleek barn owl perched on top of the brick wall gazing down at him with large, amber eyes, and another moment before he notices a letter tied to its leg. He moves forward and the owl proffers the letter for him, staying perfectly still while he struggles with the twine, and then taking off again with a professional flap of its wings.

He’s about to call for Muriel when he notices the name written in silvery ink on the black parchment: _Draco Malfoy_. Bemused, he tears the envelope and begins to read.

> _Dear Mr. Malfoy,_
> 
> _My name is Astoria Greengrass. I’m afraid my name may not be pleasant to you, but I wanted to apologize on behalf of my sister and assure you her beliefs are not shared by the rest of us. My family is complicated — something I think you and I have in common — and we have our share of generational prejudice, aristocratic privilege, and ex-supporters of the Dark Lord’s regime, but my parents are better than they were, and I was never close enough to my sister to understand her leanings. We have never really met, you and I, apart from once when you and your cronies stole a school carriage from me and mine, but I feel obliged to reach out. If you are interested, you are welcome to come to tea any day this summer and destroy as many of our lawn ornaments as pleases you._
> 
> _Sincerely yours,_
> 
> _Astoria_

Draco finds himself blushing by the time he finishes the note and glances around just to make sure no one is watching him as he tucks it away again. He’s walked the upper circles of wizarding society long enough to recognize coded flirtation when he sees it, and this wasn’t even close to subtle. Before he can quite process his feelings or even reconstruct what he knows about the younger of the Greengrass sisters, Muriel and Chris have joined him in the garden.

Miraculously, the ministry hasn’t pegged Muriel for the theft of the Fat Lady yet, or noticed that Chris still hasn’t had his memory wiped, so the celebration is a little bit for them, too. Still, there has been an undertone of anxiety in their demeanor during the few hours since he returned from the ministry.

“Draco, love,” Muriel starts with a fond expression on her face.

He clasps her shoulder and nods. “I understand. Where will you go?”

“New Zealand, of course,” she says, looking relieved at his reaction. “I’ve got plenty of family there to put me up till I find a place of my own, and they’ll love to see…” She gives her purse a pat, which echoes loudly. Then she gives him a quick hug, squeezing his thin frame tightly for a moment, before stepping back and pulling a moth-eaten mitten out of the purse. “Anyway, it’s been a joy. Write if you get the chance, though you might not want to use your own owl as it’ll take them a while to get there. You might even try muggle-post,” she says, seeming to consider it for the first time herself.

“I will, definitely,” he says. “Is Gill…Guilfy coming?”

“Already packed.” She pats the bag again. “It’s roomier than it looks and I’ve given him a bit of a sleep potion so he won’t mind the trip. Anyway,” she says again and backs away with a surreptitious glance at Chris.

The muggle takes a deep breath and steps forward to fill her space in the cramped garden as she drifts off toward the snargaluff. “About what I wanted to tell you this morning. I’ve decided to go with Muriel.” Draco’s eyes widen and he opens his mouth to say something, though he’s not sure what, but Chris forestalls him with a hand. “Wait, let me just… They have laws protecting people like me — from getting our memories wiped, I mean, if we don’t want it. And Muriel says I might even be able to petition the university there to study magical ornithology!” He looks so excited that Draco can’t help but grin back at him. Chris takes another breath and looks a little more steadily into Draco’s eyes, reaching out a hand to take one of his. “You’re a good person, and the sex,” He looks around to make sure Muriel’s not listening. “The sex was unbelievable. Literally. You may have spoiled me for normal muggle sex. But I need to do this, and anyway, you should be with someone who understands what you’re going through. I don’t mean _exactly_ what you’re going through, just — you’ve been through a war, and I think, right now at least, you need someone who gets that, who gets this,” and he holds up Draco’s forearm. It’s the wrong one — the Dark Mark is on his left arm, but the message is clear.

“So are you saying I should take up with Potter?” Draco asks, raising an eyebrow.

Chris snorts and then looks around again, guiltily. Muriel has turned around again and is holding up the mitten to Chris. He doesn’t say anything more, but winks at Draco as he grabs onto the now-glowing mitten and bites his lip a little suggestively. Draco suddenly feels a stirring in his underwear. He looks down and touches himself, surprised, and Chris laughs as he and Muriel vanish into the warm, summer air.

◆◆◆

The next day, Draco apparates outside the newly repaired gates to the Greengrass estate and is welcomed inside by a glowing Astoria. She apologizes again for her sister as she takes him on a leisurely stroll around the grounds. They pause by the waving willow and Astoria leads him out onto the pond, which has little buoys to mark where the water will support your weight and where you can jump in if you feel so inclined. A table set with a tray of canapés and two cups of steaming tea stands in the center of the pond, and the two of them sit eating and talking for at least an hour as the sun wheels overhead. They talk about their parents’ twisted views of society, about the war, about what they’d like to say to their past selves, and he’s surprised to find how alike they are. She may not be a war criminal, but she knows what it’s like to have evil in the family and in yourself.

“So, Draco,” she says at last as the china disappears from the table. “Or should I say, Mr. Greengrass.”

The flirtation is obvious, obviously, but Draco hesitates to respond. They both have so much baggage, and that’s without the baggage that so recently developed between them, and then there’s Chris. But Chris was never really his — he doesn’t even think Chris really liked him that way. It was sex, like he said, and the excitement of discovery. And did Draco like him? Possibly, but there was so much else wound up in that, he’s not sure he’ll ever unwind it all. No, Chris was right; he needs someone who gets him, but if he’s going to do this it’s going to be different, all the cards on the table.

“I…like you, Astoria,” he stammers. _Fuck_ , he thinks immediately. He didn’t mean to just say it like that. “I think you’re cute, I mean.” Well, bad to worse. Astoria’s eyebrows have rocketed up her forehead and she’s looking at him as though he’s grown an extra head, but she’s still smiling in a bemused sort of way. “I think you’re cute and I’d like to go out with you. But I’m not going to be like…this,” he says, gesturing around at the manicured garden. "Not anymore." And suddenly he’s telling her that he really was a flip-flopping Death Eater, that he still thinks Potter is a prick even though he knows what he did was right. He even tells her he wants to become a watch-wizard in a muggle-heavy area and do muggle-outreach, which, what the fuck where did that come from? He tells her he’s insecure about his hidden Dark Mark. He tells her that his last relationship was with a muggle boy, and that his dick hasn’t worked properly for the last week. When he finishes, he almost stands up to see himself out because merlin that was such a fucked up speech, but she leans her chair up on its back legs and grins slyly across at him.

“I think I can work with that,” she says, and he blushes so deeply he thinks he might cry. For a moment there’s just the twittering of birds and the gentle sounds of the fountain as they look out across the pond, then there’s a crack as Astoria lets her chair fall back to the water, looking suddenly alert. “Oh, is it my turn, then?”

Draco laughs at the scared look on her face; he laughs at the ridiculousness of the situation; he laughs in relief at being over this mad crazy week, and slowly Astoria starts to laugh with him.

“Astoria!” a regal voice calls reprimandingly across the water.

“Oh!” she gasps and quickly muffles her laughter in her hands. She throws a guilty look at Draco, who rolls his eyes.

“I’m going have to get my own place if we’re going to do this, aren’t I?”

The End.


End file.
